Is the NBA becoming America’s first international game? I don't mean international in a citizenship sense, in that regard both baseball and hockey have also realized a great deal of internationalization. All three leagues have seen interpreters become an essential part of the team. Instead, I mean international in the sense of multiple backgrounds, multiple styles and personalities. The NBA has been a real exception to the idea of the American melting pot, the idea that everyone comes together under a common American thinking and lifestyle. A league where there’s truly more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak.

I heard a lot about the melting pot growing up. Social studies teachers used it as a means of illustrating one of only a few real day-to-day differences between American and Canadian living. I was always intrigued by this idea, being a citizen of both countries, living in Canada but spending weekends and summers in the states, and I was able to see first hand what those teachers were getting at. At home, people remained strongly identified with their homelands, retaining those practices and traditions which they felt were worth keeping. Conversely, in the U.S. people, including my family, identified proudly and positively with their Americanism over and above all else. I got a first hand knowledge of two different but successful ideologies in action.

There’s a similar trend in all but one of the major American sports. The melting pot mentality and the NFL go hand in hand. Like the vision of a single American identity, the NFL appears to be smart, efficient, and structured. I don’t think it’s too reaching to say that in general, assimilation is a key to success in football. Knute Rockne is Bart Starr is Walter Payton is Tom Brady. Helmets hide a difference in facial feature; structure hides a difference in identity.

In baseball, the player may be given a great deal of identity, but his game play is likewise melted down. The style of baseball played in the United States is generally the same as in Mexico, Cuba and Japan. Foreigners compete, but they do so with the same general skills and strategies that were developed by American players decades ago. Put another way, there’s a generally accepted “right” way to play baseball, a common thinking that is consistent with the melting pot ideology.

The same cannot be said for the NBA though. In fact, it’s arguable that the NBA long ago broke out of the melting pot, in that it’s operated successfully for years with two distinct identities. The emergence of the successful black athlete who brought with him an inner city background and style to the game forced the NBA to accept identity beyond its original ideals. Confronted with an urban player who wanted and deserved a voice to go along with their ability, they became a sport with multiple identities, multiple ways of success. People more adept than me have illustrated the importance of Texas Western’s NCAA win outside of sports, but suffice it to say that from purely a game-play perspective, their style of play wasn’t just different, it was to that date "unamerican". Most importantly though, it won games. It was a different but successful ideology in action.

The European teams, and as a result their exported players, likewise play a different game. There’s no mistaking the fact that Yao Ming is Chinese, that Dirk Nowitzki is German, no more than you can mistake that both play a uniquely "unamerican" game. It’s a trend, thirty years and running, of an expanded definition of the identity of NBA basketball.

So what’s it all mean in the long run? As a minimum, it speaks well to the health of basketball in America. At best, it could mean that basketball is slowly becoming the next soccer, redefining the international sporting world.