U.S. begins search for next Olympic team

Even as confident as Jerry Colangelo is that the United States will retain
most of the core of its gold-medal Olympic team, the USA Basketball chairman
concedes this week's minicamp will be important for helping identify the
program's next wave of talent.

Colangelo told Yahoo! Sports in a recent interview he still expects most of
the roster from last summer's Beijing Olympics to return for the 2010 World
Championships and the 2012 Olympics. Among the players he expects to return
are: Kobe Bryant , LeBron James , Dwyane Wade , Dwight Howard , Chris Paul ,
Carmelo Anthony , Chris Bosh and Deron Williams .

Even so, fatigue, free agency and injury could end up changing a star's mind
next summer.

"Generally speaking, you can expect turnover and there should be," Colangelo
said. "That's part of the pipeline. But a number of them say they want to
come back.

"I haven't talked to them lately. But I talked to them all during All-Star
break [in Phoenix] and laid out a plan. If it's my decision, I want them for
two years, 2010 and 2012. 'What do you think? How do you feel?' They all
said, 'Let's do it.' The World Championships are held in high esteem. The
guys who played in Japan [in the 2008 World Championships] still remember
losing to Greece. It's not like we're starting from scratch."

One major challenge for USA Basketball is keeping its stars interested after
last summer's success. Wade, Anthony and James have played for the national
team since the 2004 Athens Olympics. Bryant will be 32 years old during the
World Championships next year in Turkey.

Colangelo, however, has several reasons to believe the U.S. stars will live
up to their word. One is that many of those players appear to have
thoroughly loved the rare experience to be teammates and would hate to miss
out on another opportunity to make more history. They also won't be lacking
for a challenge: The United States hasn't won the World Championships since
1994.

"I will only be 27 years old," Anthony said during the 2008 Olympics. "I
want all the gold medals I can get throughout my career."

The opportunity to play in the 2012 Olympics in London is an easy recruiting
pitch. But will those same players show similar enthusiasm for a long trip
to Turkey and the Worlds' lengthy 24-team tournament? Colangelo has been
trying to sell to his stars that some nations consider the World
Championships to be a more prestigious event than the Olympics.

"We have some unfinished business," Colangelo said. "That's the theme. Let's
take care of that with the next step being the Olympics. It's one thing to
get to the Olympics; it's another to defend it. We're taking it one step at
a time."

U.S. head coach Mike Krzyzewski and his assistant coaching staff of Mike
D'Antoni, Nate McMillan and Jim Boeheim have already committed to return.
USA Basketball is expected to make the announcement during a news conference
this week in Las Vegas.

"If it's not broke, don't fix it," Colangelo said. "There is a good thing in
place. You don't want to make change."

A Chicago native, Colangelo also is on the committee to try to bring the
2016 Olympics to the Windy City. He can envision some of the younger players
from last summer's gold-medal team competing seven years from now. But even
if most of the veteran U.S. stars return for the 2012 London Games, there
will be at least four new players on the roster. Oklahoma City Thunder
forward Kevin Durant is expected to be a lock. Portland Trail Blazers guard
Brandon Roy , who isn't expected to participate in the minicamp, Chicago
Bulls point guard Derrick Rose , Indiana Pacers forward Danny Granger and
Los Angeles Clippers rookie forward Blake Griffin should be also among the
top candidates competing for roster spots.

"The talent will be outstanding," Colangelo said. " . I'm excited to see
them work together with one another."