Nobody is questioning America’s dominance as a supplier of global talent for years to come. But as Canadian hockey can attest, every empire wanes.
It’s a question that would have been unfathomable a generation ago: How long will we wait to see another U.S.-born player named the NBA’s most valuable player?
If you haven’t been paying attention, a player raised in the United States hasn’t won the award since 2018, when James Harden took home the trophy. In the five seasons since, a handful of international performers have passed it around, from Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo to Serbia’s Nikola Jokic to Cameroon’s Joel Embiid, the most recent recipient.
