Worldwide, basketball tournaments are held for boys and girls of all age levels. The global popularity of the sport is reflected in the nationalities represented in the NBA. Players from all over the globe can be found in NBA teams:
- Chicago Bulls star forward Luol Deng is a Sudanese refugee who settled in Great Britain, and plays for the British national team alongside Toronto Raptors centre Pops Mensah-Bonsu.
- Steve Nash, who won the 2005 and 2006 NBA MVP award, is a South African born Canadian.
- Andrea Bargnani of the Toronto Raptors, top pick in the 2006 NBA Draft, is from Italy. In addition, American superstar Kobe Bryant spent much of his childhood in Italy while his father was playing there.
- Dallas Mavericks superstar and 2007 NBA MVP Dirk Nowitzki is German.
- All-Star Pau Gasol of the Los Angeles Lakers is from Spain.
- 2005 NBA Draft top overall pick Andrew Bogut of the Milwaukee Bucks is Australian. Also, 2008–09 rookie Nathan Jawai is the first Indigenous Australian ever to play in the league, and the following season saw another Indigenous Australian, Patrick Mills, enter the league.
- Houston Rockets All-star center Yao Ming is from China.
- All star and former three point champion Peja Stojakovic is Serbian.
- All star Andrei Kirilenko is Russian.
- Phoenix Suns guard Leandro Barbosa, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Anderson Varejao and Denver Nuggets center Nenê are Brazilian.
- Cleveland Cavaliers big man Žydrūnas Ilgauskas is Lithuanian.
- Perhaps no NBA team is as identified by international players as the San Antonio Spurs. The team's three most prominent players are all international—Tim Duncan of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Manu Ginobili of Argentina and Tony Parker of France (Duncan competes for the United States internationally, as the Virgin Islands did not field a basketball team for international competition until well after Duncan started playing internationally, and all U.S. Virgin Islands natives are United States citizens by birth).
- Ginobili's countryman Andrés Nocioni plays for the Sacramento Kings.
- The Kings also feature the first Israeli to play in the NBA, Omri Casspi.
- Jonas Jerebko of the Detroit Pistons is the first NBA player from Sweden
Even in the '90s, many non-American players made their names in the NBA, such as Croats Dražen Petrović and Toni Kukoč, Serb Vlade Divac, Lithuanians Arvydas Sabonis and Šarūnas Marčiulionis and German Detlef Schrempf.
John Hollinger of ESPN has analysed foreign players' performance in the NBA and his research suggests that players moving from the Euroleague to the NBA experience, on average, a 25 per cent drop in scoring rate, an increase of 18% in their rebound rate, a 31% increase in their assist rate, a drop of 12 per cent in shooting percentage and a 30 per cent drop in Player Efficiency Rating.[24]
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