{"id":137498,"date":"2025-09-12T10:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/137498\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T10:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:39:08","slug":"nationalism-at-all-star-by-coachthorpe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/137498\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationalism at All-Star – by CoachThorpe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If the whole non-U.S. globe shares eight All-Star roster spots, then Pascal Siakam and Andrew Nembhard join a long list of international studs who might not make it. JASON MILLER\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NBA says about 70% of players in the league are American, meaning it therefore will be easier for international players to make an All-Star roster in a U.S. vs. the world-style competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, when Shams Charania shared news<\/a> of yet-another new All-Star game format, he included this sentence.<\/p>\n

The new setup calls for 24 All-Stars to be, oddly, divided into three teams: two from the U.S. and one from the entire rest of the world combined. I don\u2019t care much about All-Star weekend, nor will I watch. But this doesn\u2019t sit well with me.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re decades into not caring where an All-Star was born. It\u2019s not a meritocracy, exactly\u2013scorers and fan favorites make it over defenders and winners. (One year Yao Ming made it even though he didn\u2019t play.)<\/p>\n

Now, all of a sudden, it matters. And the NBA is taking the position that this change helps overseas players.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll just say that looking ahead to this particular season, the 2025-2026 season \u2026 I doubt it. It very much seems to me that the league is top-heavy with international players. Vegas\u2019s top four candidates to win the 2026 NBA MVP are all from overseas:<\/p>\n

Nikola Joki\u0107 is the best player in the world.<\/p>\n

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the reigning champion, MVP, and Finals MVP.<\/p>\n

Giannis Antetokounmpo is a former MVP with a lot to prove.<\/p>\n

Luka Don\u010di\u0107 is my pick to win this year\u2019s MVP.<\/p>\n

When healthy, Joel Embiid belongs among those four. I\u2019m not sure how to rate his likelihood of playing in this game, but let\u2019s say that his odds of playing and playing well are akin to the odds of one of those four missing the game due to injury. In other words, four spots are not just filled, but filled.<\/p>\n

That leaves four open spots on the international team, and wow is it hard to choose:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the whole non-U.S. globe shares eight All-Star roster spots, then Pascal Siakam and Andrew Nembhard join a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-137498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}