Before the 2019 World Cup gets underway in two years, the nations who will be represented must be decided through the qualifying round. While USA Basketball has been dominant in international play for years now, the team will still have to qualify to participate in the World Cup.
FIBA recently changed the qualifying round time slot from summer to later in the year starting in November. This change will make it nearly impossible for NBA players and coaches to take part. The coaching has to be stronger than ever, especially without NBA talent at their disposal and according to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, Jeff Van Gundy will be the man at the helm for USA:
Jeff Van Gundy will coach USA Basketball’s roster of non-NBA professionals who will try to qualify for the Americans for the World Cup in 2019, league sources told The Vertical.
Van Gundy, an 11-year NBA head coach and currently a TV analyst for ESPN, will coach a roster compromised largely of NBA Development League and overseas American players in tournaments over the next several months.
A formal announcement is expected this week, sources said.
While Jeff Van Gundy has made a name for himself in the broadcast booth, he was a solid NBA coach before that. He was last on the sidelines in 2007 as the head coach of the Houston Rockets and also had a long and largely succesful stint with the New York Knicks.
Van Gundy had been on the radar of multiple teams with head coaching vacancies in recent years as well so him taking the coaching position in the World Cup Qualifying could show his willingness to jump back into leading a team.
