International NBA players

At the beginning of the 2007-2008 basketball season, there were 71 International NBA players from 31 different countries on team rosters; in addition there were another 51 players whose rights are owned by NBA teams. The teams leading the league in the amount of foreign talent were the Los Angeles Lakers and the Phoenix Suns with six players each. France was the leading country sending players to the U.S. with eight players on a roster.

The San Antonio Spurs have five international players on the roster, and three of the five are the highest paid players on the team. Tim Duncan (U.S. Virgin Islands), Toni Parker (France) and Emanuel Ginobili (Argentina) being the top three highest paid respectively.

Players make considerably more money than would be possible in their home country. The league minimum for the 2004-05 season was $ 385,277 for rookies. However, in international leagues, the average salary is somewhere between $20,000-100,000 not including incentives.

San Antonio Spurs guard Toni Parker recently signed a six-year contract extension in which he will earn $66 million in total. The average salary in Parker’s home country of France for technical communication employees is 43,739 euros (67,611.7 USD), 162 times less than his $11 million a year.

Along with the income international players receive, they also are granted a chance to help the home country with charities. Since its creation in December 2001, the Tim Duncan Foundation has raised $650,000 for various causes. The foundation has managed to raise almost twice the average American household income each year, and the same results would not have been possible without Tim and his basketball fame status.

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