FIBA World Cup Group Stage Picks

The time is almost here! The 2023 FIBA World Cup will take place from August 25th through September 10th with group play being played in Okinawa, Japan, Manila, Philippines, and Jakarta, Indonesia.

Image via FIBA

For our American audience who may not be familiar with the international game, these FIBA games have a little something to offer for the basketball lover in all of us. For the college fan, the international scene provides a similar high energy college feel, as the players pridefully represent their countries in front of packed out arenas. FIBA basketball tends to favor physical defense and big man play similar to the flow of a college game with their lack of a defensive 3 second call and a more lenient approach to hands-on defense.

To those that prefer the NBA, these matches can be a great early-indicator of players for the upcoming NBA season. Anyone who watched FIBA EuroBasket 2022 would tell you it was impossible not to notice the potential of Finland's Lauri Markkanen in a superstar role. Through the event the Finnish power forward averaged 27.9 points and 8.1 boards per game on 59/40/86 splits. Fast forward to the NBA season Lauri was given the keys to the Utah Jazz and would go on to have a breakout year averaging 25.6 points per game and 8.6 rebounds with 50/39/88 splits as well as securing his first all star appearance.

Similarly, anyone who watched Germany's performance during the event could see that Dennis Schröder was more than deserving of playing time on an NBA contender. The German captain led his team with 22.1 points and 7.1 assists through the event and would go on to have a solid season with the Lakers -- where he posted 12.6 points and 4.5 assists per game on a team that reached the Western Conference Finals.

This year's World Cup will also be a great chance to check out some of the NBA’s young players, such as the Heat's Nikola Jovic. This will be a great test for Jovic heading into his second NBA season, as he joins a solid Serbian roster. Jovic will likely be expected to play a larger role in the noticeable absences of the great Nikola Jokic and two-time EuroLeague champion and 2021 EuroLeagaue MVP Vasilije Micić.

Now that I’ve got you interested and ready to watch the 2023 FIBA World Cup, here are my picks for each of the pools in the group stage.

I won’t go through and justify each one, however I will summarize my general reasoning as follows. In these picks I value teams composed of solid defensive big men and players with European basketball experience, as well as experience playing with one another, with bonus points if your players have both European and NBA experience.

Unless you have the luxury player pool of the USA, it's nearly impossible to win on talent alone in FIBA, and teams with lots of experience playing at the international level have an advantage versus teams who may have just a few flashy players on their roster. This could be seen in Germany's 86-81 victory over a very talented Canadian team in their Wednesday exhibition.

Image via Canada Basketball

With that being said my picks are as follows:

Group A: Dominican Republic

Group B: Serbia

Group C: USA

Group D: Lithuania

Group E: Australia (however Germany is my dark horse pick of the tournament)

Group F: Slovenia

Group G: Spain

Group H: France

Games will be begin on August 25 and are live across ESPN networks.