Milwaukee Bucks: A Bucks-centric 2019 FIBA World Cup primer

United States of America

Last but not least, we reach Team USA where both Brook Lopez and Khris Middleton got their well-deserved call-ups to represent their country.

As we touched on with Turkey, Team USA has been drawn to Group E, along with the Czech Republic and Japan. The Americans will kick off their slate by taking on the Czech Republic this Sunday, then Turkey on Tuesday and finishing out the group against Japan next Thursday. All games will be played at 7.30 a.m. central time.

As has been well covered, the selection process around Team USA’s roster construction and lead up to the World Cup has been mired by plenty of dropouts, injuries and questions over the lack of star power on the 12-man squad. Their recent loss to Australia during the exhibition tour, which saw their 78-game consecutive win steak come crashing down, didn’t relieve those concerns by any stretch and has raised some level of urgency of where their chemistry stands ahead of the start of the World Cup.

From a Bucks perspective, Middleton has been far from a convincing contributor, despite getting plenty of run and a number of starts under head coach Gregg Popovich. Lopez has been the odd man out behind the likes of Myles Turner and Mason Plumlee, though that wouldn’t be the case if the nation of Australia had their way.

Needless to say, a very inexperienced Team USA roster will have to come together and fend off the pressure that will only increase with the number of teams thinking they have a shot at knocking off a diminished American squad.

As is always the case, we’ll have you covered regarding the action for the World Cup and rounded the performances of Bucks players over the next two weeks.