This is a copy of a post I made earlier on the Euroleague sub, I am interested in an NBA-FIBA fan perspective on it:

Most seem to agree that these Olympics were fairly successful for international basketball - all countries brought their best players and we saw many memorable matches. The FIBA World Cup, on the other side, while it can be interesting, fails to become prestigious, particularly in America, and can’t attract many of the top players. I think most fans would rather their team win the Olympic gold medal than the FIBA World Cup. How the idea would work:

• The FIBA World Cup is held during the Olympics and renamed to the FIBA Olympic World Cup, the winner receives not only the Olympic gold medals, but also the Naismith Trophy, and is referred to as the World Olympic Champion. The winner is recorded as both the Olympic Gold Medal Winner, and the FIBA World Cup Winner.
• It is expanded from 12 to 16 teams, with 4 groups of 4 - not only do we not miss some excellent teams, but we finally get a normal competition format. Some people might complain that the World Cup has 32 teams, but most of these are just not very good and a lot of the FIBA World Cup games are uninteresting blowouts - realistically you won’t have more than 16 decent national teams at the same time
• At some point in the future, if basketball should “outgrow” the Olympics, the FIBA World Cup could continue independently (like in football), while the Olympic tournament would be either abolished or made U23 (also like in football)
• The calendar is changed so that we have a major international tournament every 2 years, for example:
  • 2024 Olympic tournament
  • 2026 Continental cups (Eurobasket, Afrobasket, Asia Cup, AmeriCup)
  • 2028 FIBA Olympic World Cup
  • 2030 Continental cups (Eurobasket, Afrobasket, Asia Cup, AmeriCup)
  • 2032 FIBA Olympic World Cup
• Continental cups (Eurobasket, Afrobasket, Asia Cup, AmeriCup) are expanded so that smaller teams that can’t qualify for the Olympic World Cup can still get the experience of playing against strong teams in competitive tournaments:
  • Eurobasket is expanded from 24 to 32 teams
  • Asia Cup and Afrobasket are expanded from 16 to 24 teams
  • AmeriCup is expanded from 12 to 16 teams
• The Olympic World Cup would probably attract all of the world’s best players, especially since USA soon won’t be able to win tournaments without bringing the best they have, and their players seem to be particularly attracted by the prestige of the Olympics.
• We will no longer have two tournaments competing for which is the premier tournament of international basketball, but just one

The Qualification Process

Since the World Cup is international, all continents should be represented. The best way to do this would be to give a guaranteed spot to the winners of the continental cups, so the winners of Eurobasket, AfroBasket, Asia Cup and AmeriCup would qualify directly - this would also elevate the importance of these competitions - more top players would come if qualifying meant a certain Olympic ticket.

This means that depending on who is hosting and who is the current champion, 4-6 spots would be taken directly, while 10-12 would go to qualifiers - these 10-12 spots should simply be filled by the best teams, regardless of continent, as decided by the Qualifying Tournament (QT), whose format would change:

• All quarter-finalists of continental cups (Eurobasket, Afrobasket, Asia Cup and AmeriCup) are guaranteed a place in the QT, which means we would have 26-28 teams competing for 10-12 spots. Additionally, 2-4 wild cards are given to the best ranked teams that haven’t made the QT, making the total number of teams in the QT 30, up from the current 24.
• If there are 10 Olympic spots left, there are 5 QT groups of 6 teams. In each group all teams play eachother once (total of 5 matches per team). The top 2 in each group qualify for the Olympics.
• If there are 11 Olympic spots left, there are 5 QT groups of 6 teams. In each group all teams play eachother once (total of 5 matches per team). The top 2 in each group, and the best third-placed team qualify for the Olympics.
• If there are 12 Olympic spots left, there are 6 QT groups of 5 teams. In each group all teams play eachother once (total of 4 matches per team). The top 2 in each group, and the best third-placed team qualify for the Olympics.

Here is how it would have looked like in the 2024 Olympics:

https://preview.redd.it/lubnel3v69id1.png?width=1636&format=png&auto=webp&s=46945f0c429202af975258f376f9f1393184a115

What do you think?