Эрик Споэльстрагаар удирдуулсан АНУ-ын эрэгтэйчүүдийн шигшээ баг 2027 оны Дэлхийн аварга шалгаруулах тэмцээн болон 2028 оны Лос-Анжелесийн олимпод бэлтгэж эхэллээ.
АНУ-ын шигшээ багийн ерөнхий менежер Грант Хилл туслах дасгалжуулагчдаар Марк Дэйгнолт, Ж.Б.Бикерстафф, Марк Фью нарыг томилсноо албан ёсоор зарлав. Хилл багийн бүрэлдэхүүнийг зан чанар, оюун ухаан болон олон талт арга барилд тулгуурлан бүрдүүлэхийг зорьж байгаагаа илэрхийлсэн юм. Ирэх есөн сарын хугацаанд дасгалжуулагчдын баг 2027 оны Дэлхийн аваргад оролцох 12 тоглогчийг сонгон шалгаруулах ажилдаа ороод байна.
Дэлхийн аваргын тэмцээн нь олимпыг бодвол АНУ-ын шигшээ багийн хувьд илүү сорилттой байдаг ч тоглогчид хүсэл эрмэлзэлтэй байгаа нь нааштай үзүүлэлт юм. Грант Хилл хамгаалалт, шидэлтийн чадвар болон будагтай талбайн давуу талыг бүрдүүлэхэд анхаарч, ялалт байгуулах боломжтой багийг бүрдүүлнэ гэдэгтээ итгэлтэй байна. Өмнөх жилүүдийн туршлагаас харахад Дэлхийн аваргад оролцсон залуу тоглогчид олимпын багт багтах магадлал өндөрсдөг нь батлагдсан билээ.
Шигшээ багийн бүрэлдэхүүнд Кейд Каннингем, Жейлен Дюрен, Жейлен Уильямс, Чет Холмгрен болон шинээр драфтын нэгдүгээр сонголтоор тодорсон Эй Жей Дибанца зэрэг ирээдүйтэй залуус багтах боломжтой байна. Мөн Паоло Банкеро зэрэг туршлагатай тоглогчид шигшээ багт тоглох сонирхлоо илэрхийлээд байгаа юм. Грант Хилл өөрийн үүрэг хариуцлагыг ухамсарлан, шигшээ багийг амжилттай бүрдүүлэх тал дээр өмнөхөөсөө илүү туршлагатай болсноо онцолсон байна.
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Now that the USA coaching staff is set for the next two summers, next comes the fun part.
Who are the players going to be?
USA Basketball formally announced men’s national team head coach Erik Spoelstra’s staff for the 2027 FIBA World Cup in Doha and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics: Oklahoma City’s Mark Daigneault, Detroit’s J.B. Bickerstaff and Gonzaga’s Mark Few. Their appointments were reported Tuesday by The Athletic and other media outlets, subject to approval by the USAB’s board of governors. The board gave its consent Thursday.
“Building a staff is similar to building a team. You want character, intelligence, but you also want different approaches and different perspectives and different styles,” said Grant Hill, U.S. men’s national team managing director, in an interview with The Athletic. “I am really excited and look forward to these four men working together, problem solving and collaborating.”
How J.B. Bickerstaff invests in his players
Hunter Patterson
With the coaching staff set, Hill, USAB director Sean Ford and Spoelstra will spend the next nine-to-10 months identifying, recruiting and perhaps even making some tough cuts to fill out a 12-player roster of young American NBA stars (or rising stars) for the World Cup.
Actually, those discussions have already begun. Whereas Team USA has won five consecutive Olympic golds, the last two World Cups (2019 and 2023) have not gone the Americans’ way. The challenges that make the World Cup harder on USA Basketball still exist.
But there is reason for hope, and even optimism, that the team the U.S. sends to Qatar next summer will capture American fans’ attention and, of course, win.
“You got a lot of young guys who want to be a part of it, which is great,” Hill said. “I think it’s actually an exciting time. I think we’ll have a chance to have a good … I think we’ll be good.
“I think we will be big, we’ll be really good defensively,” Hill continued. “I think we’ll have shooting. … I think we’ll be fine. We’ll have an opportunity to win.”
To the casual U.S. fan, Hill’s rhetoric may be confusing. Have a chance? What? Shouldn’t the best, deepest, richest basketball-playing country have more than a chance to win a World Cup?
Well, again, the World Cup is harder for the U.S. Beginning in 2019, FIBA, the international governing body for basketball, moved the World Cup from two years prior to the Olympics to the year before. A two-year commitment has been much, much harder for USA Basketball to sell to top American stars than it has been for the other great basketball countries with NBA stars like Germany, France, Serbia and Canada, to name a few.
The Americans finished seventh in 2019 in China, and then fourth at the 2023 Cup in the Philippines. Reading back the rosters from those teams, a fan might think, “Wait, there were a bunch of stars on both rosters.” While that would be true today — Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Donovan Mitchell were on the team in 2019; Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton, Jalen Brunson, Austin Reaves, Mikal Bridges and Jaren Jackson Jr. were on in 2023 — those same players were mostly rising stars with little experience at the time.
While the same dynamics will mostly be in place for this cycle, Hill said that over the last year, he has been approached by “players, agents, and parents (of players) about wanting to play.”
Hill declined to disclose which players (or agents or their parents) have raised their hands, or which players he and the rest of the U.S. staff have identified as targets. But there is a chance the U.S. could attract players who have already made All-NBA teams, All-Star games, won NBA titles and previously played for the men’s national team.
Consider candidates from the Pistons, whom Bickerstaff coaches, and the Thunder, with whom Daigneault won a championship in 2025.
In Detroit, there is All-NBA guard Cade Cunningham, whose only experience with the U.S. men’s national team was a brief stint on the Select Team in 2023. He is a 6-6, 220-pound point guard. Jalen Duren, the restricted free-agent center for the Pistons, was also on the 2023 Select Team with Cunningham; he’s a 6-10 behemoth who averages a double-double in the NBA, was an All-Star last season and would thrive under FIBA rules for paint and rim defense.
In Oklahoma City, Jalen Williams missed most of last season with devastating (to him and to the Thunder’s chances) hamstring injuries. But the year before, he was an All-NBA selection on the Thunder title team. He is a 6-5 wing and two-way player. Chet Holmgren, who is 7-1, is not only under Daigneault’s direction in Oklahoma City, but also played for Few at Gonzaga.
Reigning NBA Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg was the USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year, leading the under-17 team to a gold medal at the youth World Cup, and also played for the 2024 Select Team. Charlotte’s Kon Knueppel does not have a history with USAB, but he is 6-6, young and shoots 42.5 percent from 3-point range. He is also a Duke alum, where Hill is a crown prince (if Mike Krzyzewski is king on campus), and would surely answer the phone when Hill calls.
How excited is AJ Dybantsa about being the number 1 pick?
Josh Robbins and Jeshua Kidd
The No. 1 draft pick from June, Washington’s AJ Dybantsa, told The Athletic he wanted to play for the next U.S. World Cup team two years ago. His business manager is his father, Ace, and AJ was MVP of the under-19 World Cup playing for the U.S. in 2025.
Paolo Banchero, the Orlando Magic’s biggest star, was an NBA All-Star following his appearance with the U.S. team at the 2-23 World Cup. He hoped to be on the Olympic team that won in Paris and ultimately didn’t make that roster. But league sources with knowledge of Banchero’s thinking said he has strong interest in playing for the U.S. in 2028.
Banchero saw first hand that building equity in the World Cup can bode well when it comes time to pick the Olympic team. Two of his teammates from 2023, Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton, were picked for the Paris team the following summer
“I think Anthony Edwards and Halliburton’s play certainly helped them,” Hill said. “I don’t know if I could honestly say before the World Cup in ’23, that either one of them would be on the Olympic team. But how they played (at the World Cup) and certainly what they did the following year in the NBA certainly helped with the decision to put them on the team (in 2024).”
There of course will be more names to emerge (the 2026 NBA Draft class is deep with top-line American talent, for instance), and there are no guarantees any of the names speculated above will ultimately play for the U.S. in Qatar. The NBA season is long, injuries change things and war still rages in the Middle East, where both host-nation Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (where the Americans would likely play exhibition games) have both recently taken fire from Iran.
If those players are interested, any of the mitigating factors previously mentioned could change their interest. Or, Hill, Ford and Spoelstra could go in a different direction.
But who is going to play for USA Basketball at the next major competition is going to be a dominant storyline for the 2026-27 season, and there is momentum on the Americans’ side.
Why? Because most of the next crop of stars in the U.S. don’t have much equity with the men’s national team, and would like to build some before the Olympics.
“I’ll be the first to say I have a better idea and a better understanding of what this is,” Hill said, whose first tournament as managing director was the Philippines World Cup. “And so I will be better, in terms of the World Cup and my role and my responsibility to build the roster.”
