Toronto’s Paskal Siakam from Cameroon is among the international stars seeing action in the NBA Finals. | AP photo
TORONTO — Sometime in the next couple weeks, either the Toronto Raptors or Golden State Warriors will proclaim themselves to be world champions.
They won’t be true “world” champions, of course.
But these NBA Finals have a very distinct international feel.
Game 1 of the series on Thursday night (Friday morning, Philippine time) is in Canada, the first time a finals game will be played outside the U.S. Raptors President Masai Ujiri was born in Nigeria. There are players from eight different countries — the U.S., along with Canada (Chris Boucher), Spain (Marc Gasol), Britain (OG Anunoby), Cameroon (Pascal Siakam), Congo (Serge Ibaka), Australia (Andrew Bogut) and Sweden (Jonas Jerebko).
“It says a lot that the first NBA Finals outside of America is being played here,” Ujiri said. “Maybe one day it will be real ‘world champions’ or something, but this is what we dream of.”
It’s even a homecoming of sorts for Warriors guard Stephen Curry, again.
His first four trips to the finals pitted him against Cleveland, not far from Akron, Ohio — where he and LeBron James both were born.
Toronto has even more direct ties than Cleveland does for Curry; his wife Ayesha was born and raised in Toronto until she was 14, and his father Dell Curry played for the Raptors.
So Stephen Curry lived in Toronto for a bit, and went to school there.
“A lot of family history,” Stephen Curry said.
The finals will be aired in 215 countries, three Canadian networks will air the series live (one of them in French), and broadcasters speaking in 50 different languages will work the games.
There are a half-dozen networks from Australia, Estonia, Hong Kong and New Zealand airing the finals for the first time.