FIBA World Championships Begin Saturday;
Team USA Set for Official Games

After weeks of training, USA Basketball Men’s Senior National Team is set to accomplish what casual observers feel is a forgone conclusion: not just win, but cruise to the Gold at the FIBA World Championships and restore Team USA’s dominance in international competition.

But while the team is unquestionably the most talented squad in the tournament, the same could be said of the USA Basketball teams that competed in the World Championships in 2002 (sixth place) and the 2004 Olympics (third place). (History Note: The 1998 USA Team finished third in the World Championships. Although a young Brad Miller and Mateen Cleaves were on that squad, this team was made up mostly of CBA players, NBA hopefuls and other journey men as the league was in the midst of a lockout. This group actually overachieved by winning the bronze).

USA Today’s David DuPress has a great feature in today’s issue about the state of USA Basketball as they prepare to play Puerto Rico (1 am ET, ESPN2) in opening round action. Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post and Tom Knott of the Washington Times both provide their thoughts on the team. And NBA.com spoke with six international basketball experts to get their thoughts and predictions.

What are your thoughts Team USA and their continuing journey? Do you think the games are a formality, or do you see a repeat of the last two international competitions? For you East Coast fans, will you stay up to watch the games or will the online recaps satisfy your summer hoops void?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 18th, 2006 at 9:22 AM and is filed under Wizards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.