The NBA's Global Game Plan

NBAE/GETTY IMAGES
The Dallas Mavericks are winning big with international players

(3 of 3)

If they keep earning those frequent-flyer miles, there's no telling how cosmopolitan the NBA will get. Some observers think as many as half the league's players could be foreign-born by the end of the decade, but Commissioner Stern calls that a stretch.

"The breadth and depth of American basketball talent are not going to be challenged," he says with a smile, conveniently ignoring the U.S.'s embarrassing early exit from last year's World Basketball Championship (the winner was Yugoslavia). But he is quick to add that by that time, the league could be deriving up to half its revenue from outside the U.S. The world doesn't have to take over the NBA, Stern would like to think, for the NBA to take over the world.