New York, Oct 22 (IANS ) For the fourth consecutive season, the National Basketball Association (NBA) League will feature more than 120 international players -- a record-tying 125 foreign players -- with all 30 teams featuring at least one international player when the 2024-25 seasons kicks off with defending champion Boston Celtics taking the field for the opener.
The NBA on Tuesday announced that the 125 international players will represent a record-tying 43 countries across six continents are on opening-night rosters. The 2024-25 season will have a record number of players from Australia (13), Germany (8) and Cameroon (5), and a record-tying 14 players from France and 17 from the continent of Africa.
"The opening-night rosters feature at least 120 international players for the fourth consecutive season and at least 100 international players for the 11th straight season. All 30 NBA teams feature at least one international player," the NBA informed in a release on Tuesday.
The records for international players and countries and territories represented were set at the start of the 2023-24 and 2017-18 seasons, respectively.
For the 11th consecutive season, Canada is the most-represented country outside of the U.S. with 21 players, followed by France, Australia, Germany and Serbia (6). There are 61 European players on opening-night rosters, including four members of the 2023-24 All-NBA Team. They are the 2021 NBA champion and two-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks; Greece; ties to Nigeria), five-time NBA All-Star and All-NBA First Team member Luka Dončić (Dallas Mavericks; Slovenia), 2023 NBA champion and three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić (Denver Nuggets; Serbia), and three-time NBA All-Star Domantas Sabonis (Sacramento Kings; Lithuania).
Regular season games will be held in Mexico while Paris will for the first time host two matches, NBA deputy-commissioner Mark Tatum informed during an interaction with the global media. The Oklahoma City Thunder and the Portland Trail Blazers feature a league-high seven international players each, followed by the Atlanta Hawks, Mavericks, Houston Rockets, Orlando Magic and Toronto Raptors with six each.
The 79th NBA regular season will reach fans in 214 countries and territories in 60 languages through the league’s broadcast partners around the world and NBA League Pass, the league’s premium live game subscription service available via the NBA App, Tatum said.
Tatum also said that all the stakeholders including the players and media will function under the social media guidelines that restrict the players from using their mobile phones from 45 minutes before the start of the game.
Tatum said this had become necessary to control the unusual movement of betting odds because of the information shared by the players from the locker rooms.