NBA rosters feature a record 135 international players, including 23 from Canada

Indiana Pacers Andrew Nembhard Oklahoma City Thunder Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

Basketball keeps getting more global.

The NBA season opens Tuesday, and the league’s opening night rosters show a record 135 players who were born outside the United States, including a league-leading 23 from Canada. They come from 43 countries — tying a record — and 71 are from Europe, the most ever from that continent.

That development comes with the NBA in talks, along with FIBA — the sport’s global governing body — to develop a new league in Europe, something that could happen as early as 2027.

“The state of the game of basketball in Europe I think is fantastic,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said last month. “They have their own traditions, which we of course want to maintain, but we think there’s an opportunity to bring an NBA-style league to the continent and to take the game to another level.”

Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP, leads a Canadian contingent that also includes his teammate on the Thunder’s 2024-25 championship team, top defender Luguentz Dort.

Toronto Raptors forward RJ Barrett, veteran star Andrew Wiggins of the Miami Heat and Bennedict Mathurin and Andrew Nembhard of the finalist Indiana Pacers are part of the Canadian contingent — the largest outside the U.S. for the 12th straight season.

The NBA lists Boston Celtics forward Chris Boucher (St. Lucia) and Washington Wizards guard/forward Kyshawn George (Switzerland) as having ties to Canada but does not include them among the country’s players.

All 30 teams have at least one international player on their opening night rosters. And the NBA is expected to finalize a new All-Star Game format before long, one that will have U.S. players taking on international players in a tournament.

Along with Gilgeous-Alexander, players born outside the U.S. (Serbia’s Nikola Jokic three times, Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo twice, Cameroon-born Joel Embiid once and Gilgeous-Alexander once) have won the last seven NBA MVP awards, the longest such streak in league history.

It should be noted that Embiid is an American citizen and helped the U.S. win Olympic gold at the Paris Games in 2024.

LeBron watch

At this point, every time Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James plays he updates league records. He’s the NBA’s all-time leader in points and minutes and has a few more milestones in his sights this season.

— His first game of the year will officially make this his 23rd season, breaking a tie with Vince Carter for the most in NBA history by a player.

— If he plays in 50 games, he’ll break the record of 1,611 (regular season only) held by Robert Parish.

— If he makes 350 field goals, he’ll break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s mark of 15,837.

Milestones on the way

— James Harden of the Los Angeles Clippers has 27,687 points in his career and needs 603 more points to pass Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony for 10th on the NBA’s all-time list.

— Sacramento’s Russell Westbrook needs 75 assists to become the eighth player in NBA history with 10,000.

— Indiana coach Rick Carlisle is seven wins shy of 1,000 in his career. He’ll be the 11th coach to get it and probably the last for at least a few more years; Miami’s Erik Spoelstra enters this season with 787 wins.

— Spoelstra is nine wins shy of passing Red Auerbach for the most wins coaching one team. Auerbach won 795 with the Celtics; only Gregg Popovich (1,390 with San Antonio) and Jerry Sloan (1,127 with Utah) had more wins with one franchise.

— Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers has been on the sideline for 1,978 games, which is eighth-most — for now — in league history. If he coaches the full season, he’ll climb to No. 4 on the all-time games coached list, passing Bill Fitch (2,050), Jerry Sloan (2,024), Larry Brown (2,002) and George Karl (1,999). No. 1 on that list is Lenny Wilkens (2,487), No. 2 is Don Nelson (2,318) and No. 3 is Gregg Popovich (2,214).

— Denver, Brooklyn, Indiana and San Antonio will all play their 4,000th all-time NBA game this season. Denver will get there against Brooklyn on Jan. 29, Indiana’s milestone game comes Feb. 2 at home against Houston, while San Antonio and Brooklyn will both get there on Feb. 5 — the Spurs doing so in Dallas, the Nets doing so in Orlando.

— Atlanta is 33 wins away from becoming the sixth franchise with 3,000 regular season wins, joining Boston, the Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia, New York and Golden State.

— Indiana is 20 wins from 2,000 regular season wins.

14 million coming

The league enters this season about 46,000 points shy of someone scoring the 14 millionth point in NBA history.

Based on last year’s average of about 228 points per game being scored, it’ll take somewhere around 200 games this season for someone to reach the milestone.

That means it’ll happen somewhere around Nov. 17, give or take a day or two either way.

Name game

Among the name highlights in the NBA this season, based on the opening night rosters:

— There are seven Jordans (Boston’s Jordan Walsh, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Jordan Miller, New Orleans’ Jordan Hawkins and Jordan Poole, New York’s Jordan Clarkson, Phoenix’s Jordan Goodwin and San Antonio’s Jordan McLaughlin). Combined, they’re about 10,000 points behind Michael Jordan’s career total.

— There are five players named Nikola (Denver’s Nikola Jokic, Miami’s Nikola Jovic, Oklahoma City’s Nikola Topic, Atlanta’s Nikola Durisic and Chicago’s Nikola Vucevic).

— There are five James (the Lakers’ LeBron and Bronny James, the Clippers’ James Harden, Indiana’s James Wiseman and Charlotte’s Sion James).

— Orlando Robinson might be the only player in the league who’ll wear his first name on the front of his jersey and his last name on the back. He has a two-way deal with the Magic.

— The Bucks have three Antetokounmpo brothers: Giannis, Thanasis and two-way player Alex.

The Nets are young. Really young

The Brooklyn Nets are young. So young, in fact, that they don’t have anyone on their roster who ranks among the league’s top 100 active scorers headed into this season.

The numbers are wild when put into perspective. Players on the Nets’ opening night roster have combined for 21,708 points and 1,018 starts at this point in their careers.

There are eight active players — LeBron James, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, DeMar DeRozan, Chris Paul and Damian Lillard — with more points than the Nets’ roster starts this season with.

James, Paul, DeRozan, Mike Conley, Durant, Al Horford, Russell Westbrook, Brook Lopez and Stephen Curry all have more starts.

James, Andre Drummond and Nikola Vucevic have more rebounds than everyone on the Nets roster. Curry — the NBA’s all-time 3-point king — leads a group of six players with more 3s than the Nets, while there are 10 players with more steals and 26 players with more assists.

The leading scorer on the Nets’ roster right now is Michael Porter Jr., with 5,597 points in his career to this point.

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With files from The Canadian Press

Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press