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The Welsh, he said, will not be allowed to derail the move. And, in a stinging rebuke, he has ordered Basketball Wales to go back to the table and re-consider their intransigence. “By covering about 95% of the basketball family in this country, and while we have to respect the decision of the board of Basketball Wales, it’s unstoppable,” he said. “You have this almost unanimity to want to maintain a British programme and go and be successful. I think that we will be able to persuade Wales to join this party. “You want basketball in this country to be like Spain, France, Italy, and Greece. I think that if this is the case, it should be logical to move to a British system. Every stakeholder who is giving up something should put on the table what it wants. Keeping independent just for the sake of playing Division C in Europe? I’m sorry, that’s probably not the right argument. It’s not even supported by the Welsh Government. TalkBasket

FIBA, Great Britain 

Could three-on-three basketball be coming to the Olympics? It will if FIBA, the international governing body, has its way. Secretary-general Patrick Baumann said Saturday that his group planned to propose it to be played as early as the 2016 Rio Games. Three-on-three, the game played in driveways, on playgrounds and around the country during the annual Gus Macker tournaments, debuted in the 2010 Youth Olympic Games. FIBA wants to create a comprehensive ranking system that would determine the best three-on-three teams in the world. FIBA already has a three-on-three world tour and world championship, but Baumann welcomed all three-on-three tournaments, such as Gus Macker and Hoop It Up, into the fold as long as those tournaments adhered to FIBA rules, including the registration of players in a database to chart wins and losses. USA Today

FIBA, Olympics 

Baumann reasoned that three-on-three would allow more countries to experience the Olympics and help FIBA expand basketball's global popularity. He said smaller basketball nations regularly send teams to the three-on-three world championship. USA Today

FIBA, Olympics 

Steve Nash, in his role as general manager of Canada’s senior men’s basketball team, is bringing together 20 or 25 of the country’s top prospects for a camp in Toronto that starts around Aug. 22. I’m told the college kids, the teens and the NBA guys are supposed to be around for the better part of the week in what’s a very important first step on the trip to get the team to the 2014 worlds in Spain (Boss? I’m going, right? Right?) and then the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Toronto Star

Steve Nash, FIBA, Canada 

Marc Stein: FIBA chief Patrick Baumann said this weekend that FIBA's 3-point line will be moved to NBA distance sooner rather than later. Too easy now Twitter

FIBA, Patrick Baumann 

Sources say that the NBA, though, has no intention of backing off its desire to get the age eligibility rules changed in hopes of raising the profile of basketball's forthcoming World Cup and thus enhancing the chances that NBA teams will eventually reap the financial benefits of such drastic changes to the landscape. "They will resist," said one source on the NBA side said of some FIBA members, "but this will eventually happen." ESPN.com

FIBA, Olympics 

Jeff Zillgitt: FIBA sec.-gen. Patrick Baumann wants FIBA World Cup in different year as FIFA WC. '14 FIBA WC in Spain; plan is to play next FIBA WC in '19. Twitter

FIBA, Patrick Baumann 

Jeff Zillgitt: Here's one for you Gus Macker and Hoop It Up fans: FIBA will submit proposal to IOC for inclusion of 3-on-3 basketball in the Olympics. Twitter

FIBA, Patrick Baumann 

Dallas' Mark Cuban is one owner who has made his feelings known that NBA teams are simply subsidizing the Olympics without receiving any control or profit. Nonetheless, Presti had only good things to say on Saturday about the status quo. "I think it's really helpful for them to play under different circumstances; it only rounds them out as players and makes them better," said Presti, who also saw Durant and Westbrook win gold at the 2010 FIBA World Championship. "What we observed from the World Championship was just the mental endurance that it takes to go through an international competition and the training camp that leads up to it in medal-round play just to get there. "Just the level of mental endurance that Kevin and Russell have been exposed to and conditioned themselves to, I think has really helped us in our playoff series. That's a real benefit. I think Serge's experiences with the national team, again just being in different situations and adjusting to different styles of play, I only makes him a more well-rounded player. And James now is also getting that level of experience. I really feel like we've benefited from all of the exposures that the players have been given, and I think they're all very grateful for the opportunity too. It's fun to watch them in these situations." SI.com

Dallas Mavericks, Oklahoma City Thunder, FIBA, Sam Presti, Mark Cuban, Olympics 

But old-timer Sarunas Jasikevicius is still seeing some bending of the rules. Saras was quoted over at Talk Basket after the Lithuania-USA game as saying, “I don’t get it. There are FIBA rules [that say that] if a player takes the ball and runs two meters, travelling must be called,” he said. “Maybe the rules will be changed in the future, but at the moment that’s travelling. Ball In Europe

FIBA, USA Basketball, Lithuania, Referees, Sarunas Jasikevicius 

“I’m not saying that [the referees] were indulgent towards Americans, or that we lost due to the referees’ fault. Absolutely not. Simply there are rules according to which the play must be whistled; it doesn’t matter if it’s [an everyday player] or Kobe Bryant.” Ball In Europe

Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant, FIBA, USA Basketball, Lithuania, Referees, Sarunas Jasikevicius 

"The Olympics are a huge for-profit endeavor," Dallas owner Mark Cuban told Yahoo! Sports on Sunday. "It makes no sense that NBA owners subsidize it." As expected, Team USA obliterated France 98-71 on Sunday, beginning the Americans' march toward a gold medal in these Olympic Games. When it was over, Bryant made the case for the NBA to hold onto Olympic basketball for its star players. He made the case for the way the Lakers had come together as champions after Bryant and Pau Gasol played in the 2008 Olympics, and how James won the MVP and on and on. "Why is this an issue again?" Bryant wondered. Yahoo! Sports

Dallas Mavericks, FIBA, Mark Cuban, USA Basketball, Olympics, Owners 

For NBA teams, the ability to control their talent in a rebranded World Cup of Basketball goes far past benefiting financially in ways that the IOC will never allow. This is the fight now, but everyone knows how it will end: The owners are organized, unified, and determined to make the World Cup of Basketball the financial boon that they always believed a European expansion of NBA franchises could be for them. They're determined to control the way that medical staff administer to players in whom they've invested hundreds of millions of dollars, control the circumstances under which those players are cleared to play with injury, and ultimately, control the fate of guaranteed contracts they're obligated to pay. As one Western Conference GM told Yahoo! Sports, in responding to Team USA players saying they want final say over whether they play in the Olympics: "If players take this control, should they also take the risk on their contract money?" Yahoo! Sports

FIBA, USA Basketball, Olympics, Owners 

Spurs general manager R.C. Buford has been on the forefront of mining the globe's most diverse talent, and has always believed that his franchise has benefited from his players' international experiences. Nevertheless, Buford told Yahoo! this in the 2008 Olympics, and his sense of the issue is unchanged: "Even among the national teams, you have a real inconsistency of care with no set of agreed-upon guidelines between FIBA and the NBA. The quality of care is different between an NBA team and national teams, but it's even different among the national teams themselves. "In the especially poorer countries, they don't always have the national team doctor at the tournament with them, and they're using a freelance doctor who may have or not have experience with sports injuries, nor the understanding of the risk-rewards of clearing a guy to play who has a $100 million contract." Yahoo! Sports

San Antonio Spurs, FIBA, RC Buford, USA Basketball, Olympics, Owners 

Adrian Wojnarowski: Dallas owner Mark Cuban tells Y! that "...the Olympics are a huge for-profit endeavor. It makes no sense that NBA owners subsidize it." Twitter

Dallas Mavericks, FIBA, Mark Cuban, Olympics 

Adrian Wojnarowski: Cuban's in majority. Another GM on my column today: "If players take this control, should they also take the risk on their contract money?" Twitter

Dallas Mavericks, FIBA, Mark Cuban, Olympics 

Al-Farouq Aminu: Got to keep getting use to this European game but we got a big win and proud of my team Got to do it again tho. # Nigeria Twitter

New Orleans Hornets, Al-Farouq Aminu, FIBA, Nigeria 

Alvaro Martin: Brazil beats Greece in SaoPaulo in an exhibition 78-71 with Varejao and Nene as starting frontcourt; Splitter (9 pts, 8 reb) off the bench. Twitter

Cleveland Cavaliers, San Antonio Spurs, Washington Wizards, Tiago Splitter, FIBA, Greece, Anderson Varejao, Nene, Brazil 

In a tense exit interview before Deng left Chicago, he told Bulls management that he would not entertain the prospect of missing out on the Games and presented an argument that he might not, in any case, require surgery before the start of the season. Deng, though, does not believe the Bulls have acted in response to his stance. "I don't think so," he said. "Me and (coach Tom Thibodeau) have a very close relationship. I spoke to (GM) Gar (Forman), I spoke to (VP of basketball operations John) Paxson, and it's one of those things you don't want to bring up. "He's doing his job. As much as I'm playing basketball, working out, I'm doing my job. You just let it be. If it's going on, it's going on. At the end of the day there are no hard feelings and I'm not a 21-year-old kid who will get upset by it. I understand the game. ESPN.com

Chicago Bulls, Luol Deng, FIBA, Olympics 

"I wouldn't want me to play (in the Olympics) either. Pax is an athlete and, as an athlete who used to play, Pax understands me wanting to play. But as a GM that's his job to try and get the team healthy and get the team ready for next year. I understand both sides to it. "But it comes down to an injury that happened at the wrong time. I just try to let people know I'm going to be OK." ESPN.com

Chicago Bulls, Luol Deng, FIBA, Olympics