The Secret Reason America Is About to Take Back Basketball

Everyone Thinks the World Caught America in Basketball. They Missed One Huge Trend.

America’s soccer futility has led me to shockingly good news for the USA in another sport. I’ll set the table with a viral lament from a U.S. men's national soccer team fan who cites America’s slide from past basketball dominance.

I’ve heard people say “well we don’t have an open system in basketball and we’re still best in the world.” Guys, in a little over 30 years foreign players went from almost no nba players and getting ran off court with our best to:
-8 straight foreign MVPs
-since 2021 first team all nba has been 21/30 foreign spots
-college bball recruiting has shifted to be a race for the best 20 year old euro players

If you don’t think their approach to development on all fronts including club structure and professional league structure impacts this you’re crazy.

I’ll add that there’s only one American on the 2026 All-NBA first team. Let’s also mention that the likely next MVP, Victor Wembanyama, is famously French.

The NBA present is quite foreign, so obviously this means the league will continue to internationalize. The narrative is always, “the world has caught up” and never “it’s about to slide back.”

Here’s what this soccer fan is missing, in part because it runs counter to a long established narrative of American basketball decline: USA youth basketball is currently crushing.

Based on what I’m seeing, I’m going to make a wild claim you’ve probably not heard elsewhere: I believe we’re at top of the market on international basketball influence. Yes, Wemby will be the league’s best player going forward, but 10 of the top 10 picks in the 2026 NBA Draft were USA nationals (The last time this happened was the talent-rich 2012 Draft, fwiw).

Given broader trends in sports, there’s reason to think America’s basketball advantage should eventually increase, not continually lessen. Ironically, this should happen for the same reason we’ll continue to fail at soccer relative to the Europeans.

Sound crazy? Well let me explain. In that sport, they have the dads. In basketball, we have the dads. Check out this chart.