USA Basketball Could Legit Miss The FIBA World Cup And Olympics, Would That Be More Shocking Than USA Soccer?

I’ve talked about being a sucker for international hoops so I’ve been following along with the FIBA World Cup Qualifying for Team USA. It’s a bit different than past years due to the fact they aren’t using NBA players. The team is made up of mostly G League players and being coached by Jeff Van Gundy.

However, the one thing I didn’t realize and it was pointed out by Marc Stein in his most recent newsletter is that the US is in serious jeopardy of missing the FIBA World Cup and possibly the Olympics. Yes, basketball has a World Cup – with the last one being back in 2014 when the US beat Serbia in the Finals. That team had a roster made up of guys like Klay Thompson, Steph Curry, Anthony Davis, James Harden, Kyrie Irving and DeMarcus Cousins.

So how would the US miss the World Cup this time around? FIBA Americas sends 7 teams to the World Cup. We are in the second stage of qualifying with 12 teams in the second round comprised of 2 groups of 6. The US is in the tougher of the group with them, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Panama and Mexico. The other group is Venezuela, Brazil, Canada, Dominican Republic, Virgin Islands and Chile. The top 3 from each group advance and then the 4th place team with the most amount of points joins them in China for the World Cup.

So what’s the problem here? The US is currently tied for first with Argentina in their group with 11 points. However, Puerto Rico and Uruguay have 10 while Panama and Mexico have 9. The US has six qualifying games left as FIBA has moved towards different windows to help coordinate with professional schedules. Those games are against Argentina, Uruguay and Panama. They need to go at least 4-2 in that stretch to feel pretty good about qualifying. You can’t finish fourth in this group because of the weaker 2nd group likely having a fourth place team with more points.

Now it would be almost impossible for the US to miss the Olympics. Seven teams from the World Cup + the host (Japan) make up 8 spots in the Olympics. After that there’s a Wild Card Tournament that is made up of the 16 best ranked teams that don’t qualify. The US would be part of that and likely send their NBA players.

You might be asking why is this relevant? The answer is because training camp is getting ready to get started out in Las Vegas with Pop taking over the reins there from Van Gundy. The question was going to be if Kawhi Leonard would show up and it was reported last night that he will miss it in order to train for the season with the Raptors. However, there still will be plenty of big names in Vegas for training camp. There’s been a major effort put into training camp and revamping this whole thing ever since the 2004 debacle in Greece.

So my question is if the US doesn’t qualify for the World Cup would it be more shocking than the soccer team not qualifying? Not necessarily in the fashion of how it happened i.e. losing at Trinidad and Tobago. But, the US is thought of as the only country that can win major events in basketball, even with how much other countries have improved. Now imagine the US not in the FIBA World Cup next year. I think that would be even more shocking, considering they just have to finish 7th than the US not getting out of the Hexagonal for soccer.