The NBA offseason may be quiet, but FIBA play is going to continue to give us basketball junkies their fix. Dario Saric, Deandre Ayton, and Argentina all made headlines this week.
Many are counting down to the start of the NBA season as they wait for basketball to come back, but there are still plenty of hoops to watch this summer.
The FIBA World Cup gets underway later this week, and plenty of highly-competitive warm-up games with NBA talent going head-to-head have already taken place.
Countries not participating in the FIBA World Cup – some of which are notable such as Turkey, Croatia, and Argentina – are playing Olympic qualifiers in a last-gasp effort to make sure they'll be participating in France in 2024.
It turns out, there's more going on in the basketball world than James Harden calling Daryl Morey a liar to a bunch of children in China, or hypothesizing about why a Damian Lillard Miami Heat trade hasn't happened yet.
Honestly, Pat Riley could just be taking a long nap. Once he wakes up, off-season activity should resume.
Plenty of stories are happening, and NBA players are showcasing their skills before training camp gets underway.
Here are some of the top basketball stories from this past week.
Can Dario Saric play a big role in the Golden State Warriors rotation next season?
Dario Saric has struggled in the NBA lately. Due to injuries, he's barely played in over 100 games since 2020.
Concerns about his health though are the main reason the Golden State Warriors were able to swoop him up on a veteran's minimum contract this summer.
It's early days, but this already looks like it might've been a steal for the 2022 NBA champions. Saric has been hooping this summer for his home country of Croatia, and most recently helped lead them to defeat Turkey and qualify for the 2024 Olympics pre-qualifying tournament.
Saric finished the game with a double-double: 22 points and 11 rebounds. The win was in Istanbul, and Turkey had NBA players Furkan Korkmaz and Alpheren Sengun suiting up for them as well.
Saric averaged 15.8 points per game, 6.4 rebounds per game, and 5.6 assists per game in the tournament. He also shot over 40% from three and looks like he could be exactly the type of bench player the Warriors were missing last season following their failure to replace Otto Porter Jr and Nemanja Bjelica.
That's pretty good value at the veteran's minimum.
Is Deandre Ayton still unhappy in Phoenix?
The Bahamas could play in the Olympics for the first time ever in 2024. Led by the NBA trio of Eric Gordon, Buddy Hield, and Deandre Ayton they defeated Argentina 82-75 in the FIBA Americas pre-Olympic qualifying tournament final to continue their road to Paris.
Eric Gordon's heroics are the main headline, but Deandre Ayton had some post-game remarks that might be worth looking into.
Best teammates I've ever been around? Perhaps we're all reading a bit too much into what's clearly a very emotional moment for Ayton, but his disconnect with the Phoenix Suns organization has been well-documented over the past two seasons.
He's been in trade rumors, there were concerns about whether or not they would match a max contract offer early in the summer of 2022, and he had plenty of disagreements with former head coach Monty Williams.
Did Ayton's frustrations extend to his teammates as well? We'll find out this season as they pursue a championship with four max contracts – Ayton, Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal on the roster.
Did Argentina completely fail to capitalize on their golden generation?
Remember when Manu Ginobili led Argentina to an Olympic Gold medal in 2004? Remember when they had him, Luis Scola, Carlos Delfino, Andres Nocioni, and Fabricio Oberto in the NBA? Remember Pablo Prigioni dropping geriatric dimes for the New York Knicks?
Basketball will never be bigger than soccer in Argentina, but over the past two decades, it seemed like it was going to establish itself as a close second.
Argentina even won the silver medal at the 2019 FIBA World Cup, losing in the final to Spain at the end of their incredible run behind Facundo Campazzo.
They won't be participating in this summer's FIBA World Cup though after they failed to qualify.
And Bahamas fairytale story is Argentina's nightmare. Their loss in the final to the Bahamas guarantees they won't be in next summer's Olympics as well.
With Campazzo heading back to Real Madrid they now have zero players in the NBA, and they haven't won a medal at the U17 and U19 levels in over 12 years.
This is an abject failure to capitalize on their golden generation, and they are going to have to dig deep and seriously think about their future if they want to get back to the heights they once reached.
