I'd say 25% is high but 10-15% is definately correct. Most teams off the top of my head have 2-3 guys (out of 15) that are foreign born. EDIT: As I'm sitting here watching the Jazz/Warriors game, I just ran through each of the 30 rosters posted on yahoo.com. Here are the foreign born players that I noted from each team: Atlanta Hawks 3 Boston Celtics 0 Charlotte Bobcats 2 Chicago Bulls 5 Cleveland Cavaliers 3 Dallas Mavericks 5 Denver Nuggets 4 Detroit Pistons 1 Golden State Warriors 5 Houston Rockets 4 Indiana Pacers 0 Los Angeles Clippers 1 Los Angeles Lakers 2 Memphis Grizzlies 1 Miami Heat 0 Milwaukee Bucks 4 Minnesota Timberwolves 1 New Jersey Nets 3 New Orleans Hornets 1 New York Knicks 0 Orlando Magic 3 Philadelphia 76ers 1 Phoenix Suns 5 Portland Trail Blazers 2 Sacramento Kings 1 San Antonio Spurs 5 Seattle SuperSonics 3 Toronto Raptors 6 Utah Jazz 4 Washington Wizards 1 That's a total of 76 players, out of 450 in the league (30X15) is 16.9%.
And the Chinese love soccer even more. Why do people always focus on how much the Chinese like basketball and not on how much they like soccer. Sure their domestic league is not popular but they love the EPL, La Liga and so forth. Even here the American media talk about how the Chinese are so much in to the NBA, but hell Man U or Real Madrid have just as much or more of a following than the NBA.
"Even here the American media talk about how the Chinese are so much in to the NBA, but hell Man U or Real Madrid have just as much or more of a following than the NBA." This statement is just wrong. The Houston Rockets are more popular then either of those teams in china.
Prove it. Almost all the articles I read say that soccer is the most popular sport in China and I have friends from China who love both sports but also say that soccer is more popular.
I never said basketball was more popular. I said the houston rockets were more popular then man u or real madrid.
I agree. MLS should ban goalkeepers starting next week. 11-10 makes a great scoreline. I know I would watch that.
I doubt this list is up to date, because the Lakers have 4 foreign born players (Radmanovic, Vujacic, Turiaf, Bryant).
Kobe was born a U.S. citizen, it's just that he was born in Italy to American parents. Vlad Rad, Sasha and Turiaf are legit. My list (which I spent a good 1-2 minutes working on) is light by 1 laker.
It didn't realize soccer was required to replicate that. Different sport, different play dynamics. Baseball is dead-boring slow... and yet extremely popular. Ditto for golf. And you realize the area of a soccer field is about 15 times bigger than a basketball court, right? You can cover the length of the basketball court with just a few steps. With any sport, the smaller the playing field is, the faster the play becomes. As such, indoor soccer is always quicker than outdoor soccer.
NBA PPG 1966-67 234.9 1967-68 233.1 1968-69 224.6 1969-70 233.4 1970-71 224.8 1971-72 220.4 1972-73 215.2 1973-74 211.5 1974-75 205.3 1975-76 208.7 1976-77 212.9 1977-78 216.9 1978-79 220.7 1979-80 218.7 1980-81 216.2 1981-82 217.2 1982-83 217.0 1983-84 220.2 1984-85 221.7 1985-86 220.4 1986-87 219.9 1987-88 216.3 1988-89 218.3 1989-90 214.0 1990-91 212.6 1991-92 210.6 1992-93 210.5 1993-94 203.0 1994-95 202.8 1995-96 199.0 1996-97 193.8 1997-98 191.1 1998-99 183.2 1999-00 194.9 2000-01 189.6 2001-02 191.0 (first year with zone defense allowed) 2002-03 190.2 2003-04 186.8 2004-05 194.4 2005-06 194.0 2006-07 197.5 First of all, it was 2001. So, it went up for one year, down for two straight years, then up, then down, now up again. Scoring way lower than the 80s or early 90s. I don't call that "gone up signifcantly." If it's 198 or higher next season, then maybe. Although even if that happens, who knows if tit could be attributed to the zone, since scoring didn't take off immediately in 2001.