As the Olympics have shown, elite athletes come from all over the world. Some countries do tend to dominate certain sports, though. In the world of professional basketball, the US has been a top producer of talent for decades. That trend has started to shift.
This animated map shows the birthplace of every player selected in the first round of the NBA draft between 1989 and 2024. It’s based on data from Basketball Reference for the modern era of the NBA draft.
As the video plays, the map shows the birthplace of every drafted player as a pinging dot. After a few moments, the dot fades and the country where the player was born fills with color. Throughout the video, blues represent players born outside the US. Yellows reflect players born in the US.
With more than 2,000 players drafted, not everyone can be called out on the map. The map identifies the first player born in every country outside the US (such as Dikembe Mutombo, who was drafted in 1991 and was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo). It also shows players who made the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
The map also features a score bug and ticker that resembles the kind of graphics you’d see on a sports broadcast. Players who made at least one NBA All-Star Game during their careers are shown in the ticker during the year they were drafted. Meanwhile, the map’s “score” tracks the number of players born inside and outside the US, with an accompanying chart to show the breakdown.
At the end, a map shows the number of draftees by country, with brighter colors meaning more players. The US leads with 840 total draftees among the 52 countries represented. Beyond the US, the top five include Canada, France, Serbia, Spain, and Australia and Germany (tied for fifth). Since 1989, a player has been drafted from every continent except Antarctica. During that time, 19.9% of first round draftees have come from outside the US. Based on recent trends, we can expect that percentage to continue growing.
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