Colangelo Begins To Visualize Make Up Of USA Olympic Roster

ISTANBUL (2010 FIBA World Championship) - USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo expects half of the gold-medal winning side of the Beijing Games and half of this year's side at the FIBA World Championship to play at the London 2012 Games for the Americans.

None of the stars from the 2008 Olympics were able to play this summer in Turkey but that opened the door for other members of the USA national team squad for 2010-12 to travel to Istanbul.

The United States have won all four of their games so far although Brazil nearly upset them on Monday.

"I thought we'd have some of those players back," Colangelo said to FIBA.com and FIBATV.Com about the absentees from the team of two years ago.

LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are among the no-shows from 2008.

"(NBA) Free agency really took its toll," Colangelo said.

"For example, I would venture to say that our team representing USA in the Olympics, with certain assumptions, will probably be made up of half of those players and half of these players.

"The important thing is our system is pretty full. We have a lot of good players and they seem to all want to play."

One player that has all but cemented his place on the London 2012 roster, assuming the Americans do qualify, is Kevin Durant.

The Oklahoma City Thunder star only turns 22 on September 29.

He has led the Americans in scoring at 21 points per game.

"Durant is showing who he is," Colangelo said.

"He was the leading scorer in the NBA last year, he's (almost) 22 years old - he's going to be a star in that league for a long time.

"It all centers around him."

Colangelo predicted there would be some tough games as they go after a first world title since 1994.

He's not surprised by how things have gone so far for the United States.

"We came as advertised," he said.

"We said we were going to be young, we were going to be athletic, inexperienced.

"It's a new experience for so many of these players. Our job is to get better each day during the tournament.

"We played six games in 10 days in three countries to this point.

"That was a little bit too much. I think it showed during the game against Brazil."