With Team USA rolling through the 2014 FIBA World Cup and winning the gold medal with relative ease, a lot of these players got a great taste at what USA Basketball expects of them.
Since Jerry Colangelo overhauled the program following the embarrassment in the 2004 Olympics, USA Basketball has been about continuity, chemistry and growth with the youth of the roster becoming the stars of international basketball. The FIBA World Championship, which has now become the FIBA World Cup, is the perfect situation to foster that growth with the young players and help them adapt to the attitude and professionalism expected of USA Basketball.
As we look toward the 2016 Olympic roster that will travel to Rio de Janeiro, the players who managed to grow in the program in this gold medal effort may not get much of a chance to make the next version of the Team USA roster. Assuming everybody is healthy enough to represent USA Basketball in 2016, the program will be adding LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Dwight Howard, Kevin Love, Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony and Paul George to the roster. That's nine players with three spots remaining.
You can question whether all of these players will want to participate, but it seems like there is a good chance they will. LeBron will be 31, three years younger than when we saw Kobe Bryant make his final appearance for Team USA in 2012 on the gold-medal winning team in London. CP3 will also be 31, probably looking to take on more of that Jason Kidd role for Team USA in his final go in international play. Howard will be 30 and Anthony will be 32.
As for the influx of younger talent, Durant, Westbrook, Love and Griffin are unlikely to pass up the opportunity to represent their country on the grander sports stage. And assuming George is able to recover fully from his leg injury suffered this summer, he seems like a lock to be a part of the next international tournament.
Will those final three spots be up for grabs for the remaining 12 members of USA Basketball on the 2014 roster or are those roster spots already set in stone?
Anthony Davis was on the 2012 gold medal roster in London, as was James Harden. Considering Harden is still one of the best scorers in the world, can light it up from the shorter 3-point line (41.4 percent in this tournament) and will only be 27 years old, one of the roster spots should be his if he still wants to play for Team USA. Davis is considered to be a large part of the future of USA Basketball and basketball in general. There's no way they wouldn't take him to Brazil.
Here's what a rough look at the depth chart looks like so far:
PG: Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook
SG: James Harden
SF: Kevin Durant, Paul George, Carmelo Anthony
PF: LeBron James, Kevin Love, Blake Griffin
C: Dwight Howard, Anthony Davis
That's 11 players locked in for Rio de Janeiro and we have 10 players left from 2014 to fight for that final spot. But shouldn't it be Stephen Curry's to lose? Kyrie Irving was the MVP of the FIBA World Cup, Kenneth Faried made the All-Tournament team, and DeMarcus Cousins will be a monster by 2016, but there may not be a single roster spot available to any of those three players. You also have to consider Derrick Rose could be back to being an MVP-caliber player then.
However, there isn't a better 3-point shooter in the world than Curry, and he could be an insurance policy from outside to round out that roster.
The players already being carried in the 11 named above are all very versatile players and capable of lighting it up for a Team USA that will look to earn its sixth gold medal in the last seven Summer Olympic games. The depth chart looks like they could use another shooting guard and while Curry is primarily a point guard in the NBA, he's more than capable of playing off the ball successfully like we saw in this tournament. You can look at the big man position and think they need an insurance big, but Love and Griffin can probably both play center in the international game, even if they're not great defenders.
With so much of this roster already figured out, Team USA may have a lot of questions when it comes to that final roster spot. It's an embarrassment of riches, but it's still a decision that affects the players who are holding their gold medals after a dominating run in Spain the past few weeks.
