National Basketball Association

Draft more proof basketball truly a global game

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 9:37 p.m. ET

foxsports

Basketball has truly become a global game, and this NBA draft has only proven that further.

We're not just talking No. 1 pick Ben Simmons from Australia, either.

The first round spanned the globe, with 14 international players - the most in any round of any draft, ever.

No. 4 Dragan Bender became the highest-drafted Croatian player ever when he got picked by the Phoenix Suns. No. 9 pick Jakob Poeltl of Austria is his country's first NBA member, with him getting taken by the Toronto Raptors. And when Phoenix took Greece's Georgios Papagiannis at No. 13, he became his country's highest NBA draftee ever.

Pagagiannis beamed afterward, saying ''it's a great achievement for the whole of Greece.''

Buddy Hield (No. 6, Bahamas), Jamal Murray (No. 7, Canada), Thon Maker (No. 10, Australia and South Sudan), Domantas Sabonis (No. 11, Lithuania), Juan Hernangomez (No. 15, Spain), Guerschon Yabusele (No. 16, France), Ante Zizic (No. 23, Croatia), Timothe Luwawu (No. 24, France), Furkan Korkmaz (No. 26, Turkey), Pascal Siakam (No. 27, Cameroon) and Skal Labissiere (No. 28, Haiti) also helped add the huge amount of international flair to the draft's first round.