The FIBA 2014 Basketball World Cup Schedule picks up at the end of the month and the tournament starts in Spain for Team USA and the rest of the field on August 30 and the tourney will last through September 14 and this is the 17th edition of this tournament and the United States is expected to play well despite the loss of Paul George to that scary leg injury.
Derrick Rose has looked good while playing for Team USA and coach Mike Krzyzewski has given him high marks and he also said that the team has been pulling together after what happened to George. Rose is coming back after dealing with two years of injuries and he is hoping to make it through the summer and this season and so far he has looked fantastic on the court.
George is a big loss for the team and some players that were cut included John Wall, Bradley Beal as well as Paul Millsap and the team now will go down to 12 players after making cuts to 16. Kevin Durant leads a group of likely players to make it, including Anthony Davis, James Harden, Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard, while players like DeMarcus Cousins and DeMar DeRozan could be on the bubble.
FIBA has some different rules and formats for basketball, but it's not all that dissimilar from what goes on in the NBA and the United States now has to put the freak injury for Paul George aside as they work on winning a title. The United States is in Group C and they will be with Ukraine, Turkey, New Zealand and Finland and some of the better teams in the tournament include Spain, Brazil, Australia, Argentina, France and Greece.
The United States starts off with Finland on the first day of the tournament and other games from that day include Puerto Rico and Argentina, Mexico and Lithuania, Greece and Senegal, France and Brazil, Spain and Iran as well as Austria and Slovenia.
The tournament was formerly the World Championship and this time it will be the last instance of the tourney being on this four year cycle, as the next one will be five years away to avoid conflicting with the FIFA World Cup. The winner of this tournament will be qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil and Palacio de Deportes de la Comunidad de Madrid will be the centerpiece spot for games and it will include the final matchup for the championship.