USA Basketball has been the dominate force in the world of basketball since their use of NBA players. The level of competition between NBA players and players outside of the NBA is drastic; the NBA is too good. There’s a reason that the United States have won five gold medals in their last five major international competitions. But in 2019, the U.S. may not have the opportunity to play for a gold medal.
The 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup qualification games will be held in November instead of their normal time, in the summer. This means that no NBA players will be allowed to participate since November is the beginning of the NBA season and the league will also not allow their players to compete in this tournament. That impacts every country who will participate in the FIBA tournament, not just the United States. Many European countries have one player, at least, who is on an NBA roster; without them, their path to the tournament may be severely altered.
What does this mean for the United States?
According to Marc Stein of ESPN, USA Basketball will be using D-League players to fill out the qualifying round rosters. Stein also pointed out that Team USA may try to recruit Americans who are currently playing overseas.
After winning gold medals in each of its past five major competitions with an array of NBA stars, USA Basketball will attempt to qualify for the 2019 FIBA World Cup using a rotating squad made up primarily of NBA Development League players.
Changes to the qualifying structure for the next World Cup by the sport’s world governing body, FIBA, have forced ?USA Basketball and countries worldwide to alter their approach for major tournament play, as FIBA moves away from tournaments held strictly in the summer.
U.S. rosters for the World Cup itself, as well as the Olympics, will continue to feature NBA stars. But the players entrusted to secure qualification for those events have to come from elsewhere because the NBA does not intend to release its players — of any nationality — for the in-season World Cup qualifying windows that begin later this year.
NBA D-Leaguers, by contrast, will be made available for selection to USA Basketball squads that are scheduled to begin playing 2019 World Cup qualifying games in November. USAB will learn its opponents for its first batch of qualifying games next week.
Another possibility, according to USA Basketball sources, ?is recruiting Americans who are playing abroad in selected leagues that will consent to releasing players for qualifying windows.
Sources said that one option USAB has considered is employing multiple head coaches during the various qualifying periods for the fresh rosters that will be selected for each of the six two-game qualifying sets to come.
But the more likely scenario for now, sources said, is the hiring of one coach not currently in charge of an NBA team to handle the 12 qualifying games before Popovich is scheduled to debut as Team USA head coach at the 2019 World Cup, replacing the highly successful Mike Krzyzewski.
Despite the lack of NBA players on the roster, the U.S. is the heavy favorite to come out on top of their region.
