Playoffs: NBA Strangers Make History Israel today

You may not have noticed, but 2020 was another year of a historic leap under the influence of foreigners on the best league in the world • And what Goran Dragic, Luka Doncic and Nikola Jukic did and do in this playoff is whipping up the cake

• Nikola Jukic.

  A show of honor in the bubble playoffs

  Photo: 

  AFP

Not sure you noticed, but 2020 was another year of historic leaps in the influence of foreigners on the NBA.

In more than a third of the playoff teams, the leading player is a foreigner.

Stranger.

True.

Not a Canadian who played in high school in the US. In about two-thirds of the playoff teams, one of the top three players is a foreigner. This Goran Dragic, Luca Doncic and Nikola Jokic is the whipped cream on the cake.

And it does not end here.

Last year there were five foreigners in the All-Star Game - which equaled the record from the previous decade, but this season it has been shattered to eight.

The general trend was clear even before, yes, but it has strengthened immeasurably in the last year or two.

In the six seasons between 2010 and 2015, we saw 12 foreigners receive personal recognition - whether it was choosing one of the top five this season, an All-Star or winning one of the individual prizes.

More precisely, over six years, these 12 players have amassed 46 such personal selections - that’s 7.6 per season.

Goran Dragic.

Ask Boston // Photo: AP

Do you look impressive?

So in the last four seasons it has been 11 different that together have accumulated 47 personal selections - an average of 11.75 per season - an increase of 54% from the first half of the decade to the second half, almost entirely affected by what happened in the last two years.

Which is already an average of 15.5 per season.

Five of the last eight defensive player awards went to non-American players, and last year four of the five individual awards went to foreigners.

And this season the same foreigner won both the MVP and the defensive player - something that only Michael Jordan and Hakim Olajawan did before.

Bottom line, this is also the top line of all this data which is unprecedented.

Because while it's very nice that Nikola Wojciech and Demontas Savonis are the only two all-stars in two playoff teams, and that in the regular season Pascal Siakam has already proven he can be the best player on the top team, and there are those who would say Rudy is no less important to Utah than Donovan Mitchell. What's really amazing is what you see when trying to rank the best players in the world from the age of 26-25 and below.

Jokic against the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.

In the top of the top // Photo: AP 

Which Americans will be on this list?

Bradley Bill and Anthony Davis have already celebrated 27, so they're out.

You can (and should) count Carl Anthony-Towns as an American, so he's there.

Jason Taitum, Tara Young, Devin Booker, Mitchell, Bam Adbaio, Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson and Ja Morant.

Did I miss anyone?

Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person.

And Joel Ambide is also very close to them.

And if we've already mentioned all of these American names, we should also mention Ben Simmons, Kristaps Forzingis, Siakam and Savonis (and again, all without a word about Canadians like Jamal Marie and Shay Gilges-Alexander).

Take all these names and rank them in the top 5, top 10 or top 15 of the best players in the world up to the age of 26, and you will see that no matter how you play with the names, about half of what you write on the page will be non-American.

This is unprecedented, a trend that is just going

And gets stronger.

And unlike some other things that happened in 2020, here there is no reason or hope that it will disappear from our lives soon.