Strategic Vision for International Play
USA Basketball announced Tuesday that Mark Daigneault, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s championship‑winning coach, and J.B. Bickerstaff, who guided the Detroit Pistons to the top seed in the Eastern Conference last season, will serve as assistant coaches for the upcoming two‑year cycle that culminates with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The appointments are still pending approval from the USA Basketball board of directors, but both hires are viewed as a strategic move to inject fresh tactical insight and NBA‑level player development into the national program.
Mark Few, the longtime Gonzaga architect who has already assisted Spoelstra and Steve Kerr, is also set to join the staff. Few, who will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame later this year, brings a proven record of building perennial contenders at the collegiate level.
Spoelstra and USA Basketball’s decision‑makers plan to convene staff meetings this summer to map out preparations for the 2027 FIBA World Cup in Qatar, a tournament that has proved challenging for the United States in recent editions.
Since the World Cup was moved to the year before the Olympics in 2019, the U.S. has struggled to attract elite American stars to the competition, finishing seventh and fourth in the last two editions while still maintaining a streak of five consecutive Olympic gold medals.
The World Cup now serves as a proving ground for emerging talent, offering younger players a direct pathway to the Olympic roster the following year. Training camp is expected to open around August 1, with exhibition matches scheduled in Macau and Abu Dhabi before the team heads to Doha for the tournament.