The NBA as it stands today certainly has more of a foreign feel to it than what it did 20 years ago.  Gone are they days when players born and raised in the United States of America were the ones that the NBA scouts watched, analyzed, and touted as the possible ?next big thing?.

The NBA 2002 features stars like Dirk Nowitzki, Peja Stojakovic, Toni Kukoc and Pau Gasol.  Each of these players learnt the game and dominated in lands outside of America, and since coming to the NBA each have utilized their unique skillsets and have either put their mark or are in the process of putting their marks on the NBA.  As John Denton of the Florida Today writes a record five international players appeared in the All-Star Game this year, and five of the ten places on the Rookie Teams were occupied by foreign future stars.  This type of evenness is what NBA Commissioner David Stern has been craving for.

"The smile that it brings to my face is this is an increasingly global game and there are young people in the countries of those players that are now going to watch their countrymen in the NBA," said Stern, who has dreamed of the NBA's appeal expanding worldwide for years. "That's going to make the sport bigger and it's going to continue to increase our talent pool."

In the Dallas-Sacramento series currently in progress there are no fewer than eight international players involved, with Dallas owning five of them.  The flow of talent doesn?t seem to be slowing either, with more and more teams spending more money and time scouting overseas for the next big thing.  After the success of Nowitzki with the Mavericks and the move to youth in America where more and more college players are leaving early teams are now looking overseas for a player who could make an immediate impact.

We saw it this season with Pau Gasol, the Spaniard sensation who went third overall to the Grizzlies (via the Hawks).  Gasol was solid all season on his way to the Rookie of the Year award.  This season Chinese sensation Yao Ming will try to go one better by becoming the first international prospect to go first overall, but he will not be the only foreign player to grace the NBA as a first year pro.

Teenage sensation Nikoloz Tskitishvili is already being compared to a young Nowitzki and will likely be a lottery pick if he declares for the draft.  Hilario Maybyner from Brazil is considered by some to be a late lottery to mid-first round pick, and Sacramento, Utah and the Clippers already own the rights to Emanuel Ginobili, Raul Lopez and Marco Jaric respectively.  The latter two are expected to be in the NBA next season.

"When you point to the improvement of the talent (of foreign players) and the popularity of our game worldwide over the past 10 to 15 years, basketball has clearly been brought to the forefront in those countries," Magic general manager John Gabriel said. "It was only natural that more and more of those players reached our league."

"In general, it seems like the world is becoming smaller every day -- and that's certainly for the betterment of sport," added Gabriel. "Our drafts are becoming filled with players who aren't ready and that's made all of us take notice of the European players. And even if those European players are younger, they're usually more ready to play because they've been playing in the leagues over there."