"International players in the NBA account to 20 percent, You're playing against professional players. Every country, everybody is professional, though the US team has the 'dream team', the else around the world just caught up pretty a lot," said caoch Krzyzewski.

"Kevin is our best player, but not necessarily our leader, we have a couple of leaders in the team, but Kevin is an emerging star, who is unique. He is not like Lebron James, Dwyane Wade. Durant is 6-9, he can shoot, he can dribble, he's very pure, he's really an amazing guy who is always we can count on the game and he is unbelievably easy to coach. He is emerging as one of the best players in the world. But he is 21, he is going to get a lot better and I think this tournament will help him."

The US team is the most successful team in Olympics competition, winning medals in all sixteen Olympic tournaments it has entered, coming away with thirteen golds.

After a week of practice in New York, including an appearance at Radio City Music Hall, a scrimmage against China on Saturday, and an exhibition game against France on Sunday, Team USA heads to Madrid for a four-day training camp and two more exhibitions against Lithuania and Spain. Then it's on to a two-day camp and an exhibition against Greece in Athens before the preliminary round of world championship play begins Aug. 28 in Istanbul.