Last night, the world's best basketball league kicked off with the meeting between the defending champions Denver Nuggets and the Los Angeles Lakers. The big star of the LA Lakers Lebron James, soon to be 39 years old, was outshone by an even bigger star Nikola Jokić, named last year's best player in the finals. He showed off his full range of play and led the Nuggets to a 119-107 victory, the Serb accounting for 29 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists, a triple-double.

Nikola Jokić, from Serbia, is one of the 125 foreign players in the NBA this season, which is a new record. The previous record was in the 2021-2022 season when 121 players were foreign and last season there were 120 players.

International players take over

It is the third season in which there are at least 120 foreign players and the tenth season in a row that there are over a hundred. All 30 NBA teams have at least one international player. The Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder are the most globalized, with eight foreign players each, followed by the Toronto Raptors and San Antonio Spurs, with seven. The Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns, both among the biggest title contenders, have six each.

Canada is the most popular but Europe dominates

For the tenth season in a row, Canada is the most represented country outside the United States, with a record of 26 players. France is second with 14, also a record. Then follows Australia nine players, Serbia seven, Germany six, Nigeria and Turkey, have five players from each country. In total, there are 40 countries and territories represented in the various squads, close to the record of 42 reached in the 2017-2018 season. More than half of the foreign players, 64, come from European countries, while 15 are African.

MVP

Three foreign players have taken the title of best player in the league MVP, Most Valuble Player, in the last five seasons.

Most recently, it was Joel Embiid (2022-23), who received the award. The previous two seasons it was Nikola Jokić (2021-22 and 2020-21). In 2019-20 and 2018-19, it was the Greek of Nigerian origin Giannis Antetokounmpo.