On the opening night of the 1990-91 NBA season, there were just 21 international players on rosters across the league. By the time the 2021-22 season tipped-off, that number was 121 players representing 39 different countries.
Of that number, almost half are European, and as basketball has become America’s global game in a way that its other traditional sports haven’t, European players have steadily gained a foothold in the NBA and overcome long-held stereotypes of foreign born players as soft, slow and unathletic.
