FIBA World Cup: USA to use non-NBA players to qualify

The Americas qualifying tournament for the FIBA World Cup has a scheduling conflict with the 2017-18 NBA season. As a result, USA Basketball will not use any NBA players to form the team it will be sending to qualify for the FIBA World Cup in 2019. USA Basketball will still be able to use NBA players to compete in the World Cup itself and the Olympics.

NBA teams will not need to lose any of its players during the World Cup qualifiers. This impacts other nations as well. Even USA Basketball head coach Greg Poppovich, will not be able to lead the qualifying team due to his coaching responsibilities with the San Antonio Spurs. The qualifying team will be selected from top players playing in the NBA D-League.

Foreign players playing for NBA teams will not be allowed by their respective clubs to play for their national teams during the qualifiers. Top European teams like Spain and France, for example, will be without some key players as they will be spending the time playing in the NBA regular season.

Despite not having access to NBA players, Team USA is still considered heavy favorites to emerge as one of the seven qualifying team from the Americas qualifers.