After finishing seventh in the the tournament, no member of Team USA was chosen to be part of the FIBA World Cup honors team, dubbed as "All-Star Five".
After Spain claimed the World Cup championship over Argentina on Sunday, September 15, its point guard Ricky Rubio and center Marc Gasol were named to the FIBA All-World Cup Team along with France’s Evan Fournier, Serbia’s Bogdan Bogdanovic and Argentina’s Luis Scola.
The All-Star Five selection, or in the case of Team USA players, non-selection, did not come as a surprise. Team USA did not advance deep into the tournament and its leading scorer, Kemba Walker, only averaged 14.4 points per game and was ranked only at 28th among all World Cup players. The American's next sources of offense was Donovan Mitchell who ranked 44th with 13.3 points per game and Harrison Barnes who ranked 60th with 11.6 points per game.
Meanwhile, the All-Star Five was led by TISSOT Most Valuable Player Rubio, who averaged 16.4 points, 6.0 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game while his Spanish teammate Gasol posted averages of 14.4 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game. Serbia's Bogdanovic averaged 22.9 points on 55.6% shooting from the field and 53.0% from three-point range, 4.4 assists and 4.1 rebounds and France's Fournier averaged 19.8 points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game. Lastly, Argentina's Scola, who will be turning 40 next year, averaged 17.9 points and 8.1 rebounds per game.
Team USA dropped out from medal contention after it lost to France in the quarterfinals. That loss also broke 58-win streak in FIBA and Olympic tournaments, which started at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. It was followed by another loss the next day to Serbia in a dead rubber match but Team USA was able to finish the tournament strong with a 13-point win over Poland.
The American team, led by head coach Gregg Popovich, has received numerous criticism over the World Cup performance but expectations from the team were actually lower after several All-Star caliber players opted out from participating.
