Team USA Gets Tough FIBA Draw

FIBA followed the lead of its soccer counterpart in seeding the field for its upcoming world championship. The idea is that by grouping teams by quality, so-called "Groups of Death" can be avoided in the opening round of the championship.

And while seeding removed the possibility of powerful Team USA matching up with stalwarts Spain, Greece and Argentina in group play, it didn't exactly give the reigning Olympic champions an easy path. In fact, Team USA could very well have ended up in FIBA's version of the Group of Death.

Team USA was selected for Group B, which also features rising European power Slovenia, a team which despite catastrophic injuries to stars Sasha Vujacic and Beno Udrih took eventual silver medalist Serbia to overtime and lost to excellent Greece by a point to lose bronze at last summer's EuroBasket. Brazil is the group's third bully, featuring a good mix of big men (Nene, Anderson Varejao) and guards (Leandro Barbosa, most notably). Group B's second European team, Croatia, is also quite good, currently ranking 15th in the world. The Croats, who finished sixth in Beijing, disappointed at EuroBasket, but have an emerging core, including Jazz-owned center prospect Ante Tomic, big man Stanko Barac, gunner Marko Tomas and point guard Roko Ukic. Iran (better than you think, but no, not that great) and Tunisia (not good) round out Team USA's Group B.

Spain's Group D could Mold also draw the "Group of Death" moniker -- the defending world champions got stuck with eternal power Lithuania (aging but potent, especially with Sarunas Jasikevicius back in the fold) and eternal "this is the year!" nation France, which features maybe the best non-American point guard in the tournament in Tony Parker, and a host of able swingmen and forwards (Nicolas Batum, Boris Diaw, Mickael Pietrus, Ronny Turiaf). Group D also features hot-and-cold Canada, sparky Lebanon and an underwhelming New Zealand team. In my opinion, Team USA has a more difficult draw, but the case could be made that Spain is in most danger to fall out of the driver's seat in its top-heavy group.

Group C, features host Turkey (which underperformed at EuroBasket but has buckets of talent), always impressive Greece, dangerous Russia, solid Puerto Rico, solid-if-Yao-is-healthy China and African runner-up Cote d'Ivoire. In Group A, Argentina drew Germany (who could fizzle in group play or make a run to the Finals, depending on whether the guards show up or not), rising Serbia, less-impressive-than-you-remember Australia, Angola and the tournament's weakest team, Jordan.

Interestingly enough, if Spain and Team USA both win their groups, they'd be on track to meet in the semifinals, not the finals. We'll get more into that -- including the prospect of Spain being better off by not winning its group -- later this week.