WWE IMAGES
The setup for Money in the Bank was in full swing this week as Raw and Smackdown started rolling.
Raw started off strong with the announcement of four contenders for the upcoming Money in the Bank ladder match being announced by Alexa Bliss and then having their own tag match. The highlight of that match for me was watching Baron's partner Drew Mcintyre turning on him mid match. The Usos had a tag match against Gallows and Anderson who honestly I'm not sure anyone asked for a return from. The biggest shock of Raw was the discovery that Bobby Lashley now speaks in third person, that was a tough discovery. Raw then also announced the women's contestants for Money in the bank from Raw which was nice to hear Alexa Bliss be named for it, I hope she gets back to regular competition because the women's division is better for it. Becky Lynch continues to burn across both brands as Becky "2 Belts" aka The Man, it's a beautiful thing she's doing honestly. Quick question, are Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins really the Raw tag team champions? That's weird. So apparently at Money in the Bank we're having another Shane McMahon vs Miz match and we're also going to have a Seth Rollins vs AJ Styles, at least I'm excited about one of those.
Smackdown kicked off with Kofi Kingston laying down some decent promo work in anticipation of his title match at Money in the Bank and Kevin Owens knocked another one out of the park which is a great beginning. The Hardy's having to give up the tag titles was a bit of a disappointment, but this is an issue that I've been talking about on Smackdown for awhile, these older superstars are more likely to break down and that's why Smackdown needs to get some more youth into its roster. Also, Lars Sullivan is the most boring "scary" guy ever, this is just Braun Stroman but less intimidating. As Smackdown announces their list of men entering the 8 man Money in the Bank ladder match, it's actually looking like an interesting match and secretly my hope is for either Randy Orton to win so he can finally have some kind of direction. For the last two years he's basically been showing up when he wants and then just disappearing for a few weeks and then coming back randomly, it's been kind of annoying. Another announcement for Money in the bank is the entry of Mandy Rose, splitting Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville after splitting the Riott Squad but on the heels of creating a women's tag team is a little bit confusing as there aren't a lot of solid women's tag teams.
Overall this was another good week as momentum begins building towards the next big event.
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for Oklahoma City surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.
They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Denver star Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Houston games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Slovenian fans will be watching Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their playoff opener at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Los Angeles. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Defending champion Boston features, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.
Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.
In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio is from France, steals champion Dyson Daniels of Atlanta is from Australia, and assists champion Trae Young of the Hawks is from the U.S. — the postseason will have plenty of international feel as well. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels (along with Young, obviously) could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament.
“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”
By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born. For the first time in NBA history, players from one country other than the U.S. combined to score more than 15,000 points; Canadian players scored 15,588 this season, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from that country.
Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It'll be either him or Jokic, which means it'll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers winning two seasons ago.
“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.
In other words, he's like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo and Doncic either.
And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA's most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else's. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it still is significant.
The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade, since soon-to-be-enshrined Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony did it when he was with New York in 2012-13.
“We’re so small, we have 2 million people. But really, our sport is amazing,” fellow Slovene Ajsa Sivka said when she was drafted by the WNBA's Chicago Sky on Monday night and asked about Doncic and other top Slovenian athletes. “No matter what sport, we have at least someone that’s great in it. I’m just really proud to be Slovenian.”
All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport's international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league that has been taking shape for many years. The initial target calls for a 16-team league and it potentially could involve many of the biggest franchise names in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
It was a season where four players topped 2,000 points in the NBA and three of them were international with Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo. Globally, time spent watching NBA League Pass was up 6% over last season. More people watched NBA games in France this season than ever before, even with Wembanyama missing the final two months. NBA-related social media views in Canada this season set records, and league metrics show more fans than ever were watching in the Asia-Pacific region — already a basketball hotbed — as well.
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers — which are clearly being fueled by the continued international growth — suggest the game is very strong right now.
“Looking around the world, and of course here in North America," Zagklis said, "the NBA is most popular and more commercially successful than ever.”