People in Canada will be watching, partly because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He is the NBA's top scorer and is expected to win MVP. He plays for Oklahoma City, and this helps attract fans from Canada.

Basketball fans around the world will be watching players from their countries, like Nikola Jokic from Serbia, Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece, Alperen Sengun from Turkey, and Luka Doncic from Slovenia. Fans in Cameroon will watch Pascal Siakam, while Boston's team has Kristaps Porzingis from Latvia and Al Horford from the Dominican Republic.

The NBA playoffs will again feature many talented international players.

This season, for the first time in the NBA, the five players who were best in different statistics came from five different countries. Because of this, the playoffs will also have a very international feel.

We have a lot of international players in this league," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. "Around 30% of our players are from, at least at the start of the season, 43 different countries. This means our teams feel much more global.

By the end of the season, players from 44 different countries scored in the NBA. For the first time, players from one country other than the U.S. scored over 15,000 points together. Canadian players scored 15,588 points, and Gilgeous-Alexander, from Canada, was the top scorer.

Many people think Gilgeous-Alexander will win the MVP award this season. If he or Jokic wins, it will be the seventh year in a row that a player from another country has won the MVP in the NBA. Before this, Antetokounmpo won two times, then Jokic won three times in four years, and Joel Embiid from Cameroon won two years ago.

After a game this season, Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said about Shai, "You cannot stop him."

Simply put, he is similar to many other international players today. Nobody can really stop players like Jokic, Antetokounmpo, and Doncic either.

This season, Doncic's jersey was the most popular in the NBA around the world. This means that NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than anyone else's. This happened partly because Doncic changed teams when he was traded from Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it is still important.

The Slovenian star is the first player from another country to have the most popular jersey. He is also the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to be number one in over ten years. Before him, the last player to have the top spot was Carmelo Anthony, who will soon be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He did this when he played for New York in 2012-2013.

Ajsa Sivka, another athlete from Slovenia, was asked about Luka Doncic and other excellent Slovenian athletes when she was chosen by the Chicago Sky WNBA team on Monday evening. She said, "We are a small country with only two million people. But honestly, our sports are fantastic. It doesn't matter what sport it is, we have at least one excellent person in it. I am truly proud to be Slovenian."

This is happening when the NBA is more serious than maybe ever about increasing its international presence. Last month, FIBA — the world basketball organization — and the NBA said they would work together on a new European basketball league they have been planning for a long time. The first idea is for a league with 16 teams, and it could include many of the most famous teams in Europe, like Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, and Manchester City.

This NBA season was special because four players scored over 2,000 points, and three of them were from other countries: Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic, and Antetokounmpo. People around the world watched 6% more NBA games online than last season. In France, more people watched NBA games this season than ever before, even though Wembanyama missed the last two months. In Canada, people watched NBA social media a record number of times this season. Also, more fans than ever watched in the Asia-Pacific area, which is already a popular place for basketball.

FIBA's secretary general, Andreas Zagklis, said the increasing numbers show the game is very strong now, likely because the sport is growing internationally.

Looking around the world, including North America, Zagklis said the NBA is more popular and makes more money than before.