The NBA and Globalism

The NBA feels like it is flourishing in a way that baseball and hockey aren’t (or even football, which, though super popular, feels like it’s on a decline somewhat in terms of star power). But despite this, something weird is going on with the NBA—it is becoming more of a global sport than an American one.

The last five NBA MVPs were foreigners—Giannis (Greece), Jokic (Serbia), and Embiid (Cameroon). The best American born players, like Durant, LeBron, and Curry, are all in the twilight of their careers. Ja Morant was the future of the NBA, and is American born, but his career has been torpedoed because of outrage over him holding guns on Instagram posts. Probably the best American born NBA player right now is Jayson Tatum, of the Boston Celtics, but he isn’t all that well-known, beyond those who follow the NBA very closely.

Luka Doncic is one of the most famous and popular players in the NBA, and he is also a foreigner, from Slovenia. Luka and Jokic are both pretty young and probably the most talented players in the NBA, and it looks like Jokic will win the NBA Finals MVP (unless the Miami Heat pull off a miracle).

Jokic and Luka are clearly the future of the NBA, but there’s something about them that’s not quite right. There are rumors that Jokic might even retire soon, because the game has gotten too easy and boring for him. He didn’t win MVP this year but he should have—and if he had, that would have been three straight MVPs. The last player to do that was Larry Bird from 1984-1986 (before that, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain did it in the 1960s, but that doesn’t really count, because it was such a different time, and they were both like Babe Ruth figures).

Jokic is on the cusp of doing something basically unprecedented, and he barely cares. Why is he even playing in the NBA? Because he has the ability to do it, and because he can make a lot of money. Europeans play for cash only. Compare this to the great recent American players, above all Kobe Bryant—if he had the chance to be as great as Bird, Russell, and Chamberlain, would he be so nonchalant about it? No. Impossible to imagine that. Just like it’s impossible to imagine any of these European players having the same killer instinct and obsession with winning that Kobe, or Larry Bird or Michael Jordan, had. There could never be a European version of Kobe. Globalizing the game brings in these players who are very skilled, but who are basically mercenaries—selling their skills for cash, without having the kind of drive and will that Bird, Jordan, and Kobe had.

Adam Silver, the NBA Commissioner, is very open about wanting to globalize the league as much as possible. There’s a long list of globalist measures they’ve taken: they play preseason games in Abu Dhabi; they’re doing an in-season tournament modeled after European soccer leagues; lots more beyond that too. Why is Silver pushing for this? To make the NBA more profitable I imagine.

But there’s a contradiction here—as the game goes global it may get more profitable, but it’s also less marketable, because fewer stars are being produced. Jokic, Luka, and Embiid just don’t have the same connection with the base of NBA fans, which are still Americans. Guys like Jokic, Luka, and Embiid just aren’t as marketable as American-born players who really cared about winning. American fans don’t just want to see mercenaries flashing their skills in exchange for cash—they want the passion of Bird, Kobe, Jordan, Garnett, etc.