The NBA may have hit rock bottom over the weekend, introducing a wonky new All-Star format consisting of a series of first-to-40 contests in which players are bribed by a prize pool of $1.8 million.

Already, the league has leaked plans to overhaul the event entirely next season. But fixing the All-Star Game, which used to be a preeminent event on the American sports calendar, would hardly solve the ills of the NBA.

At one point this season, viewership on ESPN was down nearly 30% year over year. The league has also had to incentivize players to show up to work during the regular season, offering cash prizes to the winners of a new in-season tournament called the NBA Cup.

While the players do care about the postseason–at least most of them do–fans have never cared less. Four of the five lowest-rated NBA Finals of the past 30 years have occurred in the past four years.

But, wait! Some players actually do lay it all on the line every single night, no matter the consequences of the game.

And almost all of them are foreign-born.

Last week, ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst lamented how the coverage of the NBA focuses more on drama (trade rumors, beef, free agency projection) than on the on-court product.

“My feel is that the balance is a little bit off, that I think that we should balance it a little bit better,” Windhorst told Austin Karp on The Sports Media Podcast. “There are lot of times on an average NBA night where there are absolutely amazing performances in some of these games.”

More specifically, the current NBA media does a poor job of promoting its best players, most of whom are foreign.

Last month, The Ringer ranked the top 100 players in the NBA, listing the following four stars 1-4: Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Luka Doncic. 

Foreign, foreign, foreign and foreign.

While American-born Jayson Tatum was fifth, sixth-ranked Victor Wembanyama will almost surely surpass him–and maybe Doncic–by this time next season.

International players have not historically garnered the same level of fame as American stars. Hakeem Olajuwon was an exception, but even he failed to attract the mainstream attention of some of his less-worthy American peers (like Karl Malone). 

But times have changed. The Kardashian-ization of American-born NBA players is no longer a net advantage for the league.

Fans don’t want athletes to masquerade as social justice advocates. According to a YouGov / Yahoo News poll, nearly half of America changed its NBA viewing habits after the league embraced social justice messaging in 2020, such as painting “Black Lives Matter” on the court.

LeBron James and Steph Curry aren’t encouraging athletes to speak out when they endorse Kamala Harris or call police officers racist. Instead, they are encouraging fans not to stop watching.

And they have.

Fans also don’t want to root for entitled, millionaire divas who demand a trade every other year because the going got tough. Players used to fight through adversity, overcoming whatever trials and tribulations they had to endure.

Today, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Jimmy Butler, and Russell Westbrook demand their employers rip ip their contracts the moment they think they can make more money and play fewer minutes elsewhere.

What role models for young athletes.

NBA fans pay a lot of money to go see their favorite players, well, play. Forgive the customers if they are a bit infuriated that healthy 20 and 30-year-olds skip work citing “load management” or “knee soreness.”

Sorry, but it’s true. American-born NBA players are coddled brats who are more concerned with growing their social media brands than winning basketball games.

Contrast their behavior with top international stars. Despite winning three MVP awards in the past four seasons, Jokic still plays and plays hard every night. While the American stars were launching half-court shots for giggles, Wembanyama and Gilgeous-Alexander treated the All-Star Game on Sunday like it mattered.

To them, it did.

These foreign players don’t want to be social media influencers or give speeches at the DNC. They just want to play basketball. And win. They don’t demand trades to glamorous markets like New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. Jokic and Antetokounmpo signed contracts early to stay in the small markets that drafted them. Gilgeous-Alexander reportedly plans to do the same in Oklahoma City. It was not Doncic who requested a trade out of Dallas.

Put simply, the NBA wouldn’t need to bribe basketball players to play basketball if it leaned into and promoted the right players. 

To Windhorst’s point, the NBA media needs to focus more on on-court greatness and less on how frustrated washed-up Jimmy Butler is or how many minutes nepo-baby Bronny James should receive.

Basketball junkies reminisce about the Jordan mentality, referencing how he never took plays off, cowered in the biggest moment, or let the outside noise cost him his poise. As a matter of fact, most of the top players in the NBA exude that exact mentality. They are just foreign and don’t make news by begging Instagram models to have an abortion.

For such a progressive league and media, you’d think the NBA would be less resistant to the globalism of its own players.