2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup Preview: Australia Boomers

Arguably the most-anticipated World Cup campaign in Boomers’ history kicks off Friday night in Okinawa, Japan with Brian Goorjian’s squad looking to back up their historic bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

It marks the squad’s first major tournament appearance since Patty Mills and co. secured the nation’s first ever medal almost two years ago.

Their opponent in the tournament opener comes in the form of a shrewd Finnish squad before their attention shifts to fellow medal hopefuls Germany and hosts Japan.

Having notched warm-up wins over Venezuela and South Sudan along with a loss to Brazil in Melbourne before outlasting France and Georgia in Japan, the Boomers come into the World Cup with a decent preparation stretch under their belt.

Their 12-man squad has been finalised: Xavier Cooks, Dyson Daniels, Dante Exum, Josh Giddey, Chris Goulding, Josh Green, Joe Ingles, Nick Kay, Patty Mills, Duop Reath, Matisse Thybulle, Jack White.

First-choice big man Jock Landale is unavailable after picking up an ankle issue in the side’s warm-up win over South Sudan.

Kay and Reath are expected to start alongside Giddey, Mills, and Green in the absence of Landale with Cooks and White firming as other frontcourt options for Goorjian and his staff.

Ingles is expected to be tasked with an increased ball-handling load in the non-Giddey minutes whilst Thybulle may find himself closing games particularly against smaller teams.

Giddey is the drawcard this time around for the Boomers; the 20-year-old is fresh off a season in which he averaged 16.6 ppg, 7.9 rpg, and 6.2 apg on 53.3 TS% with the Oklahoma City Thunder and has looked every bit the part throughout the warm-up stage.

The Boomers enter their opener as short-priced favourites to overcome a Finland team headed by NBA All-Star Lauri Markkanen.

Having averaged 25.6 ppg and 8.6 rpg on 64.0 TS% this past season with the Utah Jazz en route to a maiden All-Star nod and the league’s Most Improved Player award, Markkanen will prove a handful for a Boomers unit missing Landale.

Markkanen is the only NBAer in their midst; Mikael Jantunen is a 23-year-old forward who played with the Golden State Warriors’ Summer League squad a couple months back before inking a multi-year deal with Paris Basketball whilst Sasu Salin is a veteran guard who has spent the past eight seasons in Spain’s Liga ACB and is currently with CB Canarias.

Finland’s only other World Cup appearance came in Spain in 2014 where they won one of their five outings en route to a 22nd-place finish.

A German squad led by NBA standouts, Dennis Schröder, Daniel Theis, and brothers Franz and Mo Wagner are expected to present the Boomers a far tougher challenge.

Schröder has been a part of the German set-up for over a decade and helped lead his country to a third-place finish at EuroBasket a year ago, earning an All-Tournament Team nod in the process.

The soon-to-be 30-year-old made a trio of playoff starts for the Los Angeles Lakers in their run to the Western Conference Finals earlier this year and firms as perhaps the Germans’ most important asset.

22-year-old Franz Wagner, meanwhile, is coming off a season in which he averaged 18.6 ppg, 4.1 rpg, and 3.5 apg for the Orlando Magic and is a highly regarded up-and-comer in NBA circles.

The Boomers will still enter the clash as favourites but will have their work cut out for them against a strong German outfit.

They face Japan in their final 1st round outing who appear a little less formidable after it was announced that Los Angeles Lakers forward Rui Hachimura would not be available for the tournament.

The inclusion of Phoenix Suns forward Yuta Watanabe still means that there is some NBA flavour to the roster which is otherwise made up NBA G-Leaguer Yudai Baba, the University of Nebraska’s Keisei Tominaga, and a collection of talent from Japan’s domestic B.League.

The Boomers’ clash with the Japanese may provide them with their most electric atmosphere of the tournament but Goorjian will expect his men to take care of business against a side who has not tasted much international success in recent years.

A successful opening round would see the Boomers likely advance alongside Germany to take on Slovenia and Georgia, who are expected to finish atop Venezuela and Cape Verde in Group F.

Slovenia’s Luka Dončić is arguably the best player in world basketball and will provide the Boomers with a tough matchup whilst NBAers Goga Bitadze and Sandro Mamukelashvili headline a scrappy Georgian unit that gave the Boomers a warm-up scare.

The top two from said quartet will earn a quarterfinals face-off likely against one of Canada, France, Spain or Brazil.

With the state of world basketball improving by the year, the Boomers’ path towards a medal will have its challenges but, with stalwarts Mills and Ingles still a part of the side and up-and-comers Giddey, Green, Daniels and Thybulle coming into the fold, optimism is high for a reason.