To US coach Mike Krzyzewski, team USA's chances in the world championships can not be defined as overconfidence at all. He put his team as underdogs to Spain and no lock for silver, which will depend on how well and how quickly their disparate talents and personalities come together.

The current US team is much undersized and less experienced compared with their latest international rosters. The team is seriously undersized after losing Amar'e Stoudemire due to issues of contract insurance with the Knicks and Brook Lopez due to mononucleosis. The only members of the roster with international experience are Lamar Odom (2004 Olympics) and Chauncey Billups (2007 FIBA Tournament of the Americas).

"We can't just expect to pick up and be world beaters right now," said Billups, who's with the US team for the basketball festival, which also functions as a warmup for worlds.

"We've got to take advantage of that because we've got a lot of things working against us. We're not that big as a team. We don't have a dominating force that we can go to and say, 'Go to work down there.' So we're going to have to be creative. We can get it done, but at the same time, it's going to have to be collective. It's not one guy or two guys that are going to take this thing over. It's going to be a collective effort."

American dominance has lessened in recent years. Facing increased competition, US team failed to win a medal at the 2002 world championship, finishing sixth. The 2004 Summer Olympic team lost three games on its way to a bronze medal, a record that represented more losses in a single year than the country's Olympic teams had suffered in all previous Olympiads combined.

United States won its first seven games at the 2006 World Championships in Japan before losing against Greece in the semi-finals, ending the competition with the bronze medal.