Team USA’s ‘F-List’ Bunch Might Not Need FIBA World Cup Defenders

Josh Hart? It will probably be Josh Hart. It could be Bobby Portis—he’s the veteran whose place on the roster is more about toughness and presence than talent. But Hart is a good bet, too.

Should Team USA flop out at the World Cup in East Asia, which begins on August 25, the question is, who will be the Myles Turner? What member of the team will be the one to speak out loudest with a clap-back at critics? Josh Hart is the pick here, given his long history with Knicks teammate Jalen Brunson, who has been anointed the star and leader of this group.

Turner sent out an impassioned message to the many critics of Team USA in the 2019 World Cup in China, which saw the Americans lose to France in the quarterfinals and finish seventh overall. USA Basketball was a very, very easy target at that time.

Wrote Turner (with some editing): “From 1-12 top to bottom this team this roster has sacrificed so much for our nation. Our summers, our bodies, our mental. We came up short. (Nobody is) more upset than us but I refuse to tolerate any slander for our play you cannot question our heart, our character, or our spirit, we laid it all out on the line each and every game. Don’t disrespect us this coaching staff or USA Basketball as a whole but respect the world. Basketball is an international game these countries are talented … We’re also the ones who stepped up to the plate when others stepped down.”

Turner was right then. And that same speech—digital or otherwise—may need to be given for this version of Team USA in yet another World Cup, a tournament that is not and never will be the strong suit of the U.S.

The USA F-List Has a Chance

With two weeks to go before the tournament tips off, and with Team USA facing Luka Doncic and Slovenia on Saturday in a prep match after roughing up Puerto Rico in its opener, this World Cup team is already taking incoming flak. That’s fair, to a point—this is not an elite team. Brunson and fellow guard Anthony Edwards figure to carry the load as scorers on this roster, with Paolo Banchero (who passed on a chance to play for Italy), Tyrese Haliburton and Brandon Ingram also among the top-shelf offensive players for the U.S. The role players are good, with great defenders like Jaren Jackson Jr. and Walker Kessler in the paint and Mikal Bridges on the perimeter.

It is not a starry bunch, though, and it has a Trae Young problem. Eyebrows were raised this week when Young, the Hawks star, said he would have liked to be on the team, but Team USA passed on him. He made the comments in a conversation with outspoken former NBA star Gilbert Arenas, who called Team USA, a “sorry-ass group,” and doubled down later by saying, “this is an F-tier list.”

Most know that what Arenas should be taken in stride, but he is right. Team USA under new honcho Grant Hill and with Steve Kerr taking over as coach, still has zero shot of attracting top talent to its World Cup contingent, especially since the tournament was moved to odd-numbered years just ahead of the Olympics. In most Cups, international players take the tournament as seriously as the Olympics, if not more so. That’s never been the case with American players, and that is not changing. They won’t want to play for the U.S. two summers in a row, and tey’re always going to pick the Olympic summer to participate.

Thus, the U.S. winds up with the F-List roster (we’d be more charitable than Arenas and say C-List) it will take to the Philippines. None of the Americans has had any experience playing for the senior men’s national team to date. They’ll be playing against international groups with more chemistry (this is true of every FIBA tournament), that have come up together since childhood. The team lost two scrimmages, too, at the hands of the U.S. Select Team, which is essentially the practice squad. And they won’t have Young on hand, which leaves them wide open for criticism should they come up short in this tournament.

But there is reason to think the U.S. won’t need any Turner-style Twitter rants this time around. They enter the tournament as the favorites, in part because other national teams had trouble bringing back their NBA-caliber players. Nikola Jokic won’t be playing for Serbia as he recovers from Denver’s title run. Giannis Antetokounmpo won’t be playing for Greece. Domantas Sabonis won’t be playing for Lithuania. Team Canada, almost as loaded with NBA players as the U.S., is in a tough spot, too, with star guard Jamal Murray teetering on pulling out of the Cup as well.

The U.S. also has a geographical advantage. The Americans will land in Manila for group play, and will not have to leave the city for as long as they remain in the tournament (the knockout phase will move to Manila), while contenders like Spain, France and Canada will begin the tournament in Indonesia, and Australia, Slovenia and Germany all start in Japan. It helps, too, that the Americans’ Group C opponents took a serious hit when Greece lost Antetokounmpo—the other two, New Zealand and Jordan, should be easy U.S. wins. France, the defending World Cup champ, has contenders Latvia and Canada in its imposing Group H.

At this time next year, the U.S. will be preparing for the Olympics in Paris, and the roster will look much different: Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker, Zach LaVine, maybe even Stephen Curry and perhaps another run for LeBron James. For now, the F-listers are on the clock. When this tournament wraps up on September 10, they might not need to be defended, by Josh Hart or anyone, after all.