MIAMI – Add the New Year’s Eve-winning NBA star to the list of commitments for Team USA this summer.
1 seed selected from the 2022 NBA draft, league sources said Paolo Panchero is the 11th American professional to commit to the FIBA World Cup in the Philippines. the athlete. And it’s a bit of a coup for the Americans, as Panchero, who was born in the United States but has an Italian passport, previously said he would play for Italy this summer.
Team USA is assembled by Managing Director Grant Hill, Coach Steve Kerr, and General Manager Sean Ford. Panchero joins Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson, 2023 All-Stars Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton, former All-Stars Brandon Ingram, rookie stars Jalen Bronson, Austin Reeves and Michal Bridges, and veteran sixth baseman Bobby Portis. All-Rookie selection Walker Kessler and versatile winger Cam Johnson also committed.
USA Basketball has not made any announcement about its roster; Training camp begins on August 3 in Las Vegas and the first match of the World Cup will be on August 26 in Manila.
Panchero, 20, obtained an Italian passport in early 2020 (his father is of Italian descent) with the idea that he would play for the Azzurri at the Tokyo Olympics. But the games were delayed a year due to COVID-19, and he never appeared for the Italians. Meanwhile, he played one season at Duke, where Hill is considered a legend, and Hill continued to pursue Banchero after he was drafted into the NBA.
But Panchiero was still talking about playing for Italy until late last year, According to BasketNewsEuropean basketball news site. Before his enlistment in June 2022, he told La Gazzetta dello Sport: “This summer, I won’t be able to play for the national team, but next summer, I will be there,” speaking of Italy’s World Team. cup. He took a team photo with the Magic with an Italian flag, and on a podcast with then-Magic teammate RJ Hampton, he said “I’m with Italy now.”
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Banchero averaged 20 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 3.7 assists as a junior with the Magic. He’s a versatile big guy at 6-foot-10, 250 pounds who can score from the wing and get to the rim but he needs to develop his 3-point shooting (29.8 percent this season).
Kessler, of the Utah Jazz, who turns 22 a week before training camp in the USA begins, was third in the Rookie of the Year class as he voted behind Banchero and Jalen Williams of Oklahoma City. Kessler is 7-foot-1 and averaged 2.3 tackles as a junior. He and Jackson Jr., who have led the NBA in the last two seasons, are likely to be excellent choices for a championship where scoring is basically allowed.
Johnson, 27, went to the Brooklyn Nets with Bridges as part of the Kevin Durant trade in February. Johnson averaged 15.5 points and shot 40.4 percent from the 3-point range last season.
There is still a long time among those players who commit to playing for the United States and when they’re in training camp, but if they all stick to their promise, the USA team is versatile, big, and deep but short on national team experience. To date, none of the players have appeared for Team USA in the World Cup or Olympic Games.
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This is the kind of team that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has suggested he would like to see Team USA sent to the World Cup.
“If it were up to me, I would take one of these competitions, similar to what they do in soccer, for example, where I think Olympic competition is 23 and under,” Silver said recently. “I think it’s very difficult to create an expectation that our best players come back every two years and compete independently in the summer. … I think we’re here to work with our federation at the end of the day, and whether it’s the World Cup or the Olympics, there may be one that has no limits.” In terms of age and your best play, and then the other competition is one where your best is U23 or something like that, and once you do that, their expectation is that you keep competing.”
(Photo: Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)