Check out the bet of the day on any tipping site or the basketball section on any news site and it’ll display articles exclusively from the NBA and NCAA. It makes sense, as these are the biggest leagues in the biggest basketball nation.
But while basketball is definitely at its biggest in the USA, it’s also the number 1 sport in many other countries.
1. Spain
At the time of writing, Spain sits at the top of the world rankings, ahead of the United States. Basketball isn’t as big as soccer in Spain, but it’s one of the fastest-growing sports.
Spain won the FIBA World Cup in 2006 and 2019 and has also collected several silver medals and 1 bronze at the Olympic Games.
2. Greece
Soccer is the national sport of Greece and in the not-too-distant past, it had one of the best soccer teams in Europe. But that reign was relatively short-lived. Arguably, the Greek basketball team is better than the Greek football team and is considered one of the best in the world.
One of the tournaments that put Greece on the map was the 2006 FIBA Championships, where they made it to the final after beating a USA team that included LeBron James and Dwight Howard. The modern Greek team also includes Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was born in the nation’s capital.
3. Lithuania
Basketball is the national sport of Lithuania and they have a pretty good national team. It has also produced a number of top NBA players, including Jonas Valančiūnas, Ignas Brazdeikis, and Domantas Sabonis. Arvydas Sabonis and Šarūnas Marčiulionis also hailed from Lithuania.
4. Serbia
Serbia has produced an array of top talent, as well as a formidable national team that competes at the highest level. Over 30 Serbian players have competed in the NBA over the last few decades, some of the most notable of which include Nikola Jokić, a two-time MVP, and Vlade Divac, a Hall of Famer.
A Serbian (Igor Stefan Kokoškov) is also credited as being the first European full-time assistant coach in the NCAA, as well as the first non-American to hold the same role in the NBA
5. The Philippines
Basketball was introduced to the Philippines during the American colonial era and quickly became the country’s most popular sport. It remains a national sport in this country of over 100 million people, and it is played at both an amateur and professional level.
On the international stage, the Philippines hasn’t always fared as well as some of the other countries on this list, but there’s no disputing the popularity of the sport.
Summary: Basketball in Other Countries
In the US, we tend to think of sports like basketball and football as being homegrown. We have the NBA and the NFL; the rest of the world has soccer and rugby. But that’s steadily changing, and as the above list shows, there are now more countries that class basketball as their national sport.
It might be some time before we see these other nations dominate on the world stage, but competition is definitely getting tougher for the United States.
