None of the top 5 NBA players are American!

So what. Who cares?

LeBron is Chinese.

Even off of just this season I would put curry

and in terms of ability to play basketball

Giannis, Embiid, jokic, curry, luka, KD, lebron are all at that top tier

curry, KD, lebron

It's an international sport and the best players in the world come to the NBA to play.

Who are the 5 best players anyway?

Devin Booker laughs at this.

KevinD...gave the answer but I want to hear who the OP believes are the best.

And Curry from India

Giannis, Jokic, KD, LeBron, Luka, Embiid, Kyrie (per game), Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler (when it counts), Anthony Davis, Booker, Paul, Curry, Gobert, Siakam. There's a good number of Americans in the list but something's happening here. It is entirely possible that the American development system in basketball is almost as bad as in soccer, but we haven't noticed because most other countries don't compete that hard in basketball.

Who beats...

Wilt

Magic

Curry

Shaq

Durant

LeBron

MJ

Jabbar

Malone

Dr J

Embiid and Siakam are both from Cameroon. You'd think with those two and a few other lesser player from Cameroon they'd be able to scare some Olympic opponents.

Yes, the rest of the world competes hard at basketball. If you think Gobert and Siakam are on that list and not Americans Kris Middleton, Dame, CP3, Jrue Holliday, Tyler Hero, Bradley Beal, Donovan Mitchell and Kawhi Leonard then you know zilch about the greatest sport ever invented.

Two years later and I still can't forgive Rudy Gobert...if he wouldn't have tested positive for Covid in March of 2020, the NBA would never have shut down the league which set the precedent for everything else that happened over the next few months. It was the first domino to fall in a series of over-reactions. It's all your fault, Rudy!

An international team including the below would be tuff:

Kyrie

Luka

Giannis

Siakam

Jokic/Embiid

The top 8 in rebounding are international. Last year it was 10 of the top 11.

4 of the top 5 in MVP voting are international.

The US is only 4% of the world's population and the NBA is the world's top league, so I guess it shouldn't be too shocking that so many come from the other 96%.

I think Nigeria could put together a pretty good team if 1st and 2nd generation immigrants would play like you see in other international competitions (like the 100m champ being Italian). About 5% of the NBA has Nigerian connections. They could get Giannis, Bam Adebayo, Oladipo (if healthy), Andre Iguadala (if not washed), and a bunch of younger players. Giannis played internationally for Greece and those other named guys for the US, but could have chosen Nigeria.

Of course, an all-African team would be great. As would an all-Balkan team.

2/10 because some idiots actually responded despite your not being able to name the 5 (because it obviously is false).

I mean, someone like Lebron/KD/Steph is probably in the top 5, but it's not too far from being true.