Colangelo preparing for 2010 World Championship

All 12 members of the 2008 gold medal winning Olympic team will be invited back to participate in the USA Basketball program for the next three years. We know that one, 36-year-old Jason Kidd, won't be accepting the invitation. But it's possible that the other 11 will all be on the list of candidates for the 2010 FIBA World Championship, to be played in Turkey next August.

USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo recently conducted a conference call with his coaching staff to discuss players and is in the process of contacting players and their agents about their participation for the World Championship and beyond. He expects to release a list of 25-27 players who have made the commitment to USA Basketball "after the holidays."

LeBron James, whom Colangelo plans on meeting with when the Cavs visit Phoenix on Monday, will likely be on the list. As will Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Colangelo believes that any players that are free agents next summer "are going to take care of their business pretty quick." They may not be able to participate in the Team USA's mini-camp in July, but should have contracts when the team reconvenes in August before leaving for Turkey. The World Championship doesn't begin until Aug. 28.

If most of last year's Olympians want back in, Colangelo will likely fill the rest of the roster with younger players. Kevin Durant, who Colangelo says "has really separated himself from the pack in terms of readiness," is a lock to make the roster. But if free agency or injuries keep more of the 2008 guys home than expected, he'll look for more veterans.

The players that eventually travel to London for the 2012 Olympics may not all be on the list that Colangelo is currently putting together. From year to year, the USA Basketball player pool will be fluid, likely more than it was in the previous cycle, when Kidd and Carlos Boozer were added in 2007.

Colangelo is keeping a close eye on candidates as the current NBA season progresses, especially the big men.

"There's always a shortage of bigs, and in international ball, that's a priority. So we're really watching how the bigs are playing," Colangelo said, mentioning Blake Griffin, Al Jefferson, Brook Lopez and Kevin Love as players on his watch list.

The draw for the 2010 World Championship was conducted in Istanbul on Tuesday morning. It looks to be fairly balanced, with the United States, Spain, Argentina and Greece all being placed in separate groups. The U.S. seemingly has the weakest group, with Slovenia, Brazil and Croatia ranking as light-to-moderate threats to hand them a preliminary-round loss.

Colangelo took notice of the draw, but the quality of competition in Team USA's group isn't that important to him.

"You need to play them all anyway, so it doesn't really matter to me," he said. "I don't put a lot of stock in the brackets and the crossovers. We'll have a job to do and we just have to do it systematically, one at a time."

The one thing he did take notice of was the location where Group B will be playing.

"I am pleased that we will be in Istanbul [which will also host the elimination rounds]," he said, "primarily because we can kind of set up shop in one location for the entire time we're going to be in Turkey."

The World Championship is a tougher grind than the Olympics. In Beijing, the U.S. needed to play just eight games (without any back-to-backs) and three rounds of elimination play to earn the gold medal.

In Turkey, their schedule begins with three straight days of games, followed by a day off and another back-to-back. That's followed by four rounds of elimination play, where just one slipup will keep you from the gold. There are also no days off between the semifinals and the medal games.

Colangelo believes his team will be better prepared for the tournament than they were in Japan in 2006. The experience of losing to Greece in the semifinals there, along with the narrow escape over Spain in the gold medal game in Beijing will keep the players and staff cognizant of how sharp you have to be to get through an international tournament.

"You're a product of your experiences," he said. "When you go through tough times or tough games or moments, that can only prepare you for the future. So we're going to be much better prepared going forward."

Colangelo's journey from the streets of Chicago to the top of the basketball world is chronicled in the new book Return of the Gold, written by Dan Bickley. The book takes readers behind the scenes and details the process of rebuilding the USA Basketball program.

The most fascinating chapter is about the squad of no-names that Colangelo put together in 2005 and asked to win enough games at the FIBA Americas Championship in the Dominican Republic to qualify the U.S. for the World Championship the following year.

"We didn't have access to [NBA] players at that time," Colangelo said. "We had to use kind of a rag-tag group of guys, and many players had turned us down. But we fielded a team and somehow, some way, we got through it."

That was the start of the four-year journey that brought Olympic gold back to the U.S.

"Very seldom do you have the opportunity to start with a vision, put in a plan, watch it actually take place and get the desired result," Colangelo said. "So when we did win the gold medal and how it was all done, with class and dignity and showing respect for the rest of the basketball world ... in my world, it was a moment of total fulfillment."

Now, he'll try to do it all over again.

John Schuhmann is a staff writer for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

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