The next wave of globetrotters head for the UAE

The United States team boasts a depth of talent that the rest of the world can only admire enviously, writes Jonathan Raymond.

Harry Giles is one of the bright hopes on the United States basketball team currently in the UAE for the Under 17 World Championship. Courtesy USA Basketball

Back in 1992, Michael Jordan and the Dream Team arrived like rock stars at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and won their eight games by 350 combined points.

Since about that time, it has been the expectation of every US basketball team, whatever the level and wherever they go, to not only win, but win big.

Keeping to the script, the United States national team arrive in Dubai to begin their run at the 2014 Fiba Under 17 World Championship tonight, with their first match against Greece at 9pm.

Matching up against 7ft 1ins Greek prodigy Giorgios Papagiannis will be a decent bellwether for a team no rational person is picking against.

While a team such as Greece might boast a future NBA star, or a side such as Spain can possibly claim a handful of future NBA talents, every US player is considered among the best in his age class.

Ivan Rabb, ESPN’s top American college basketball recruit for the 2015 class, is here.

The second- and third-ranked recruits for the 2016 class, Josh Jackson and Jayson Tatum, are on the team. No American on the squad, in fact, is ranked outside the top 50 in his recruiting class by ESPN.

USA Basketball, even this far down the ladder, is stacked.

“We can’t really make wrong choices [with team selection],” said US coach Don Showalter.

“I think all of our 12 [players] have a chance to be that guy to turn a game around in just a few plays. Any time they have a world tournament, they’re obviously being watched by a lot of people, and I think all 12 of our guys can have that factor where people watch them and they raise their level of play.”

There have only been two previous stagings of the Fiba Under 17 World Championship, and remarkably, the US have yet to lose a game at either tournament, finishing 8-0 in each. In the 2010 final, the Americans beat Poland by 31 points. Not to be outdone, the gold-medal winners of 2012 beat Australia in that final by 33.

The bar, such as it is, has been set very high for this group. But Showalter, like any coach, is not yet letting his team entertain the notion that a third straight gold medal is already won.

“It’s always difficult. We have to make the choices [of players] that we feel are going to develop into a team the best. And it takes a while,” Showalter said.

“That’s obviously one of our greatest problems, is to develop a team out of 12 guys that are really good players.

“That’s a challenge for us, to develop a team. They’ve got to play with each other, they kind of have to get to know each other on the court.”

At least year’s Fiba Under 17 Americas championship, the US stormed to their third gold medal in as many staging of that tournament, too, beating Argentina in the final by 46 points.

In the last Under 17 Fiba Americas, the US beat Argentina by 40.

In the first U17 tournament, they finished off the same Argentinians by 14 –which implies they are, somehow, getting better every two years.

In addition to their other top recruits, they bring Malik Newman, No 3 in the class of 2015 and last summer’s Fiba Americas MVP, to Dubai.

He scored 16.2 points per game in Uruguay. Their 6ft 10 ins centre, Diamond Stone (No 4 among 2015 recruits), who scored 13.6 points per game last summer, is with the team as well.

Their other top-10 recruits include 6ft 10 ins centre Henry Ellenson (No 5, 2015), 6ft 9 ins forward Harry GIles (No 5, 2016) and 6ft 6 ins guard Terrance Ferguson (No 10, 2016). That height, across the board, means their guards will be nearly as tall as some of their opponents’ centres.

Showalter’s main task is to get a highly talented-and-touted collection of individuals to play with discipline against what will, at times, be vastly inferior opponents.

Though so far, the closest anyone has ever come to upsetting the Teen Dream Team was Argentina in 2010.

They lost by 12.

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