Achieving the Objective

The FIBA Basketball World Cup just ended, with Germany winning the gold over Serbia.  The United States lost the bronze medal game to Canada in overtime and finished fourth, marking the second straight World Cup in which they didn't medal.  While some would see this as a disappointment and/or a sign that the rest of the world has caught up, only one of those two things is true.  The world actually caught up a while ago.  As for whether this fourth-place showing is a "disappointment," that's a matter of debate.

Sure, they aren't happy about the three losses in the tournament and there are definitely things that need to be improved next summer in Paris, but winning the World Cup wasn't the objective.  It would've been nice.  Don't get me wrong.  But, ultimately, the goal was to qualify for the Olympics, which they did by finishing as one of the two best teams from the Americas.  Now they can focus on the Olympics, where a USA "A" team featuring a roster made up pretty much exclusively of All-NBA-caliber players will take the court.

That, frankly, is the way it's going to be.  With the way the tournaments are scheduled in back-to-back years (an idiotic decision by FIBA that I'll get into in a little bit), countries can't expect to have their top NBA players available for both the World Cup and the Olympics the next summer, so they have to choose which is more important.  The U.S. cares way more about the Olympics than the World Cup, so their decision is pretty easy.

It was the same thing four years ago, when their effort at the World Cup actually could be considered a disappointment.  They lost back-to-back games in the quarterfinals and classification round, ultimately finishing seventh, their worst-ever showing at a World Cup.  However, just like this year, they were one of two teams from the Americas to make the quarterfinals, locking up an Olympic berth and avoiding the Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

When FIBA moved the World Cup to the year before the Olympics, they tied Olympic qualifying into it.  The top two teams at the World Cup from the Americas and Europe qualify directly for the Olympics, along with the top team from Asia and Africa, and the higher finisher of Australia and New Zealand.  Throw in the host country and you've got eight of the 12 Olympic berths already secured.  Everybody else has to play an Olympic Qualifying Tournament roughly a month before the Games for one of the other four spots.

Avoiding that OQT is (and should be) goal No. 1.  If you have to play in one, you need to assemble your Olympic team a month earlier for a winner-take-all tournament just to get to the Olympics.  If you even can, considering the NBA Playoffs will still be going on.  Eight countries don't have to worry about any of that.  The United States, Canada, Germany, Serbia, Australia, South Sudan, Japan and France get to just sit there and wait.

France is another example of a team that did not care at all about this World Cup.  As the host country, they were already guaranteed an Olympic berth.  They beat the U.S. in the group stage in Tokyo, where they ended up winning the silver, and are a definite medal contender in Paris.  In fact, it would surprise absolutely no one if they end up winning the gold.  At the World Cup, France didn't even get out of the group stage.  That won't change anybody's opinion about their chances at the Olympics.

Next year, you can expect France to have a loaded team that includes the likes of Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum, Evan Fournier and Victor Wembanyama (as well as maybe Joel Embiid).  None of them played at the World Cup.  Why would they?  France is already qualified and hosting the Olympics, which will obviously be the priority.  So let them worry about the 82-game NBA season plus playoffs before making a run next year.

Likewise, it would be unreasonable to expect the United States to field an "A" team in back-to-back summers with an entire NBA season in between.  Throw in another NBA season after the Olympics, and that's essentially two full years without a break.  So, can you blame the U.S. for sending a "B" (or some might even say a "C") team to the World Cup?  I can't.

In Paris, meanwhile, we'll see the absolute best team the United States can send.  That will include, presumably, players like Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and James Harden, to name just a few.  It should be even better than the team that went to Tokyo, where the delayed Games and delayed NBA season ran right up against each other, resulting in some players (understandably) opting out and others like Devin Booker going immediately from the NBA Finals to Tokyo without any break at all.  Fortunately, that won't be an issue this time.

At the same time, I get why people have high expectations of the United States in basketball regardless of who's on the roster.  It's like Canada and hockey.  The NBA has all of the best players in the world, but the majority of them are still overwhelmingly Americans.  So, even a "B" or "C" American team will still be awfully competitive.  (Good enough for fourth place, as it turns out.)  The rest of the world has caught up, though, so it's not the guarantee it once was, which isn't a criticism.  It's just a fact.

Countries like the United States have the luxury of being able to field a "B" team that's still good enough to qualify for the Olympics at the World Cup.  A lot of nations don't, though.  They need their NBA guys because they aren't good enough to qualify without them.  But that puts an undue burden on players like Slovenia's Luka Doncic, who also happens to be pretty important to the Dallas Mavericks.

Frankly, that's on FIBA.  Their World Cup used to be in the same year as soccer's, but FIBA decided there was too much confusion and wanted theirs to be just as big, so they moved theirs back year, which puts it back-to-back with the Olympics.  But expecting A-team rosters full of NBA players to be available for both is unrealistic.  Some will be willing and able to play in both, but many won't.

I'm not saying every country went into the World Cup with the same mentality.  Some clearly did want to win, and congratulations to Germany on winning the championship.  But, for some countries, winning would've been an added bonus.  Countries like the United States came to the World Cup with another goal in mind.  And the Americans achieved their objective.  They qualified for the Paris Olympics.  If they don't win gold next summer, however, that'll be a totally different story!