The NBA’s shift toward international dominance is a conversation that has gotten louder with every passing season. The 2025-26 season has not been any different, with the foreign-based players still leading the “home-based” players. The past seven MVP winners have all been players born outside the United States, and the top-four candidates for this year’s awards are from Canada, France, Serbia, and Slovenia.

Former player Kwame Brown has never shied away from controversial takes, but his latest comments have struck a chord amid the NBA’s growing international influence. As European stars continue to dominate headlines and MVP races, the former No. 1 pick on Jason Whitlock’s podcast on Monday didn’t hold back while explaining why he believes the NBA is trending toward international dominance. “I predicted this a couple of years ago. It’s going to be the Euro and the white league,” Brown said. “Outside of LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and maybe Kevin Durant, a lot of our superstar guys come with a lot of baggage… We don’t support each other.”

Brown doubled down as he highlighted the structural advantage international players possess, saying: “They come with a whole country behind them. Think about the advertising dollars that Luka Doncic is creating being the top of the league,” he added. In contrast, he argued that the American players often lack unified support, with criticism and division overshadowing their collective promotion.

His comments arrive at a time when the NBA is undeniably global, with stars like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo consistently dominating the league’s biggest awards. Brown’s argument suggested that while international players benefit from national pride and cohesion, the American players face internal fragmentation. 

In contrast, the international players often arrive with cleaner public images and the backing of entire nations. This has made them more appealing from a branding perspective. Brown’s reference to Doncic’s commercial value underscored his global appeal. Luka Doncic’s Air Jordan signature shoe deal, a deal he signed in 2019 and has been extended since, has made him one of Nike’s most commercially significant basketball assets, with his reach spanning not just Slovenia but the entire European continent and the Latin market he cultivated through his Spanish fluency and Real Madrid roots.

As the NBA continues to expand its global footprint, his remarks raised a broader question about whether internal divisions could further accelerate the league’s international takeover.

The Numbers Behind Brown’s Claim: International Players Have Quietly Reshaped the NBA’s Upper Tier

Whatever the merits of Brown’s communal argument are, the on-court data that forms its backdrop is not in dispute. The last American-born player to finish in the top three of MVP voting was Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry in the 2020-21 season. Since then, the top of the award has been held entirely by international players – Jokic three times, Antetokounmpo twice, Embiid once, and SGA most recently.

The current MVP race is a four-player conversation between Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama, Jokic, and Doncic, all born outside the United States. The league’s most commercially dominant active player, Doncic, is Slovenian. Its most statistically dominant big man is Serbian. Its most physically imposing young talent is French.

Doncic himself acknowledged the trajectory last October: “Obviously, we still have American players that are unbelievable. But you know, we’re getting up there.” That “we” is the international collective, a group that, as Brown argued, arrived with a unified national support system that American players, particularly those from underserved backgrounds, often do not have.

The advertising dimension Brown points to is specific: Doncic’s international reach across Europe, Latin America, and North America has made him one of Nike’s most versatile global endorsement assets. Now, that is a commercial proposition that a player from Brunswick, Georgia, or Akron, Ohio, however talented, simply does not replicate in the same structural way.

Kwame Brown’s argument will definitely generate disagreement. He is a polarizing figure, and the bluntness of his framing invites dismissal. But stripped of its most pointed language, what he described is a structural dynamic that the NBA’s own numbers support in at least one key dimension: the top of the league’s commercial and competitive hierarchy has, over the last several years, tilted significantly toward players from outside the United States.