With the one year and done nature of college basketball, that must mean that the US has its fair share of elite high school programs. And college basketball is also still a major pipeline (and don’t forget that foreign players play at NCAA schools).

And that brings me to my next point, which is “of course there are more international stars,” because basketball is more popular internationally than ever. Europe has double the population of the United States and China has triple, both with large middle to upper middle classes that support sending kids to school based on arts and sports.