FIBA, el organismo rector mundial del deporte, tiene a Estados Unidos clasificado como el mejor equipo masculino del mundo, seguido por el actual campe\u00f3n de la Copa del Mundo, Espa\u00f1a, Australia, Argentina y Serbia, que completan los cinco primeros. FIBA reconoce a 168 federaciones nacionales diferentes en sus rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Kobe Bryant, a few months before he died, made an appearance at the Basketball World Cup in China and was asked about the future of USA Basketball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His message was clear: Gold medals will no longer come easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a matter of the rest of the world catching up to the U.S.,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cIt\u2019s that the rest of the world has been caught up for quite some time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He wasn\u2019t wrong. The U.S. finished seventh at that World Cup, the worst finish ever by an American men\u2019s team at a major international tournament. Now comes a chance for redemption, with the U.S. heading to the delayed Tokyo Games in search of a fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Americans \u2014 coached by Gregg Popovich \u2014 will be led by Kevin Durant, seeking his third Olympic gold, and have past gold medalists Kevin Love and Draymond Green back on the roster as well. The rest are Olympic first-timers, including Phoenix\u2019s Devin Booker, Miami\u2019s Bam Adebayo and Portland\u2019s Damian Lillard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll find out after the Olympics just how far people have come or didn\u2019t come,\u201d USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There will be no shortage of legitimate medal hopefuls in the 12-team field: The U.S. tops the list, of course, but Spain, Australia, France and Argentina are among the other nations that can make strong cases as to why they\u2019ll reach the top of the podium in Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain is the reigning World Cup champion. France knocked the Americans out of medal contention at that World Cup. Argentina has tons of experience, and Australia has been on the cusp of what it believes is an international breakthrough for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a goal of trying to win a gold medal for Australia, which we\u2019ve never done \u2014 or trying to win a medal, which we\u2019ve never done,\u201d Australia guard Joe Ingles of the Utah Jazz said. \u201cThat\u2019s something that\u2019s been a goal of mine since I made the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and we haven\u2019t been able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some other things to know about the Olympic men\u2019s tournament:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GAME IS DIFFERENT<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
It doesn\u2019t sound like much, but a shorter game \u2014 40 minutes under FIBA rules, as opposed to 48 minutes in the NBA \u2014 is sometimes an adjustment for NBA players. There are other rule differences such as goaltending (in FIBA play, once a ball hits the rim, anybody can tap it in or swat it away without deference to being \u201cinside the cylinder\u201d) and a five-foul limit as opposed to six fouls in the NBA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FORMAT CHANGE<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Instead of two groups of six teams, the Olympic format has been changed to three groups of four teams. That means fewer games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. played eight games at the 2016 Olympics \u2014 five in group play (one against each members of that group), then a quarterfinal, semifinal and the title game. But in the new format, teams will be capped at six games, with three in the group stage, then the quarterfinals and followed by the medal round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019ll be the fewest games played by a gold medal-winning team since the inaugural Olympic tournament in 1936, when the U.S. won the gold with a 5-0 record and played only four games. Its first opponent at those Berlin Games was supposed to be Spain, which didn\u2019t arrive because of the Spanish Civil War \u2014 so the Americans were awarded a 2-0 forfeit win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NBA PRESENCE<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
There were a record 46 NBA players on the rosters for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and it seems likely that there will be even more in Tokyo. After the U.S. \u2014 which fields a 12-man team entirely of NBA players \u2014 the team with the second-most NBA faces in Rio was Spain, with seven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nigeria may wind up with 12 NBA players on its roster for these games as well, which would make it almost a certainty that the number from Rio would be eclipsed in Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WELCOME BACK<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The host nation automatically qualifies for Olympic tournaments, so Japan is in the men\u2019s basketball field for the first time since the 1976 Montreal Games. It\u2019s likely that the hosts will have NBA players Rui Hachimura<\/strong> (Washington) and Yuta Watanabe<\/strong> (Toronto) on the roster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FIBA, the sport\u2019s global governing body, has the U.S. ranked as the top men\u2019s team in the world, followed by reigning World Cup champion Spain, Australia, Argentina and Serbia rounding out the top five. FIBA recognizes 168 different national federations in its rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kobe Bryant, unos meses antes de morir, hizo una aparici\u00f3n en la Copa del Mundo de Baloncesto en China y se le pregunt\u00f3 sobre el futuro de USA Basketball. Su mensaje fue claro: las medallas de oro ya no ser\u00e1n f\u00e1ciles de conseguir. \u00abNo se trata de que el resto del mundo se ponga al […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basketball"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111075,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111073\/revisions\/111075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportseco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WORLD RANKING<\/h4>\n\n\n\n