Why Team USA’s next World Cup qualifiers belong to EuroLeague players

USA Basketball announced its 12-man roster and coaching staff on August 20 for Window 4 of FIBA World Cup qualifying, a squad that will play at Chile on August 27 and host Colombia four days later. Buried in that routine national-team release is a telling detail: three of the twelve names build their careers in EuroLeague, not the NBA, and their presence explains a lot about how the United States fills these qualifying windows outside the regular NBA calendar.

A 12-man roster built for Santiago and Washington

According to the official announcement on NBA.com, the roster — Jaron Blossomgame, Pedro Bradshaw, Garrison Brooks, Darius Brown, Kevon Harris, Mike James, DeJon Jarreau, Dillon Jones, James Nunnally, Orlando Robinson, Tyler Smith and Cole Swider — will hold training camp in Miami from August 20-24 before flying to Santiago for a 7:10 p.m. ET tip-off on August 27. The team then travels to Washington, D.C., to host Colombia on August 31 at 7:00 p.m. ET.

Former NBA head coach Terry Stotts, most recently a top assistant with the Golden State Warriors, leads the group for the first time in a USA Basketball assignment, flanked by returning assistants Clay Moser and Marlon Garnett. Eight of the twelve players already have USA Basketball experience: Pedro Bradshaw, Kevon Harris, Mike James and Orlando Robinson all featured in July’s Window 3, when the U.S. swept road games in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, while Garrison Brooks played in Window 1. Jaron Blossomgame, Darius Brown, DeJon Jarreau and Dillon Jones will wear the USA jersey for the first time. The games will stream on Courtside 1891, available through DAZN or HBO Max.

Three EuroLeague stars carry international pedigree

The headline names in this roster, though, are the ones fans of the NBA alone might not immediately recognize. Mike James just joined Anadolu Efes Istanbul after a decorated run with AS Monaco, and he remains one of the most accomplished Americans in European basketball, having been named 2024 EuroLeague MVP; he is also the competition’s all-time leading scorer, per Hoops Rumors. The 36-year-old point guard, born in Oregon and listed at 1.85m, gives Stotts a floor general who has run European offenses at the highest level for years.

Jaron Blossomgame brings a similar résumé, having spent four EuroLeague seasons with Monaco before signing with Dubai Basketball this summer — a club confirmed among the 20 teams set for the 2026-2027 EuroLeague season, alongside Anadolu Efes. James Nunnally rounds out the trio, a longtime EuroLeague fixture who has represented Fenerbahce Istanbul, Olimpia Milan, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Partizan Belgrade over his career. Nunnally won the EuroLeague title with Fenerbahce in 2017 and played the 2025-2026 season with AEK Athens. BasketNews sources confirmed that James, Blossomgame and Nunnally were set to represent Team USA in this window, giving the roster a distinctly European accent alongside its domestic NBA and G League pieces.

Why no marquee NBA names are on this roster

The absence of household NBA names is not an oversight. As Hoops Rumors’ Rory Maher noted, “there aren’t any marquee names among the group, at least for domestic fans,” even though 10 of the 12 players have appeared in at least one NBA game. Dillon Jones and Tyler Smith closed last season with the New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks, respectively, both on two-way contracts that have since ended — Jones’ deal expired in June, Smith was waived in July. Orlando Robinson, a four-year NBA veteran, spent most of last season on a two-way deal in Orlando before his release in February.

The absence of household NBA names reflects the timing of these windows and the U.S. program’s usual approach, since these August qualifying windows fall outside the NBA calendar, and the U.S. typically sends a more star-studded squad to the World Cup itself. These windows instead give less-heralded players — G League regulars, two-way veterans and EuroLeague standouts — a chance to represent their country and help the program secure its spot in the World Cup field.

Group E stakes and basketball’s expanding European footprint

The stakes remain real. After going 5-1 atop Group A in the first qualifying round, the United States now sits second in Group E behind an unbeaten Brazil (6-0), ahead of the Dominican Republic (4-2), Mexico (3-3), Colombia (3-3) and Chile (2-4). Only the top three teams in the group, plus the best fourth-place finisher across Group E and Group F, will advance to the 2027 World Cup in Doha — part of a process that will ultimately send seven FIBA Americas teams to the tournament out of 80 nations chasing 32 total berths. Windows 5 and 6, scheduled for November and February, will complete the group stage.

Under the qualifying format used since 2019, the U.S. has gone 24-6 and topped its group in both 2019 and 2023, part of a program that has won two of the last four FIBA World Cups. The growing EuroLeague presence on rosters like this one also lands against a broader backdrop: the NBA is planning to launch its inaugural NBA Europe season in fall 2027, a project that could further blur the lines between American and European basketball talent pipelines in the years ahead.