The latest Late Night NBA Intel

NBA training camps don’t start for another month or so, but those of you missing NBA basketball have something quite imminent and interesting to look forward to:

Some of your favorites will be playing in actual game conditions very soon.

As in: As soon as Thursday.

On top of the various team mini-camps you’ve been reading about that star players are organizing these days — Luka Dončić and the Lakers in Slovenia, Aaron Gordon and the Nuggets in Puerto Rico, Cade Cunningham and the Pistons in San Diego — we’re entering a prime window for FIBA World Cup qualifying all over the world.

There will certainly be some high-profile absentees, but more than 30 current NBA players are expected to participate in meaningful games across the globe.

The same sort of robust turnout actually happened in early July as well, but the Stateside focus was firmly on the start of NBA free agency at that time. At this point on the calendar, for those counting down the slow-moving and unbearably overheated seconds until camps open leaguewide on Sept. 28, it will surely provide a welcome jolt to see Nikola Jokić captaining Serbia and Victor Wembanyama captaining France and many more NBA regulars participating.

Let’s discuss some of those specifics and then dig into my latest around-the-league notes on various trade and free agency matters.

Final 12-man rosters for competing nations will be announced this week.

Finland’s Lauri Markkanen (Utah), Croatia’s Ivica Zubac (Indiana) and Georgia’s Sandro Mamukelashvili (Los Angeles Lakers) have all committed to play from Thursday through next Monday for their European nations in addition to Jokić and the towering French duo of Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert.

Oklahoma City’s Isaiah Hartenstein was also committed to play for Germany in competitive fixtures for the first time since February 2018, but a recent ankle injury will prevent Hartenstein from getting that chance alongside fellow NBAers Dennis Schröder and Tristan da Silva.

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European Qualifiers Roster Tracker: Who will play in Window 4?

8:44 AM · Aug 7, 2026 · 2.6K Views

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Closer to home: Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Phoenix’s Dillon Brooks are not expected to play for Canada in this window after they did suit up for the national team in July, but our neighbors to the north are projected to have Atlanta’s Nickeil Alexander-Walker and newly acquired Lu Dort on its 12-man roster once it is formally announced.

We’ll share more on the various rosters as the week unfolds as player participation all gradually gets confirmed, but the Bahamas’ VJ Edgecombe (Philadelphia), Japan’s Rui Hachimura (LA Clippers) and Puerto Rico’s Jose Alvarado (New York) are three more expected World Cup qualifying participants of note.

On Friday afternoon I arrived in the United Kingdom to get myself in place for Manchester City’s opening game of the new Premier League season: Sunday’s stirring 2-1 win (after trailing 1-0 for nearly an hour) over visiting (and very well-organized) Bournemouth.

I had barely landed when the notifications and messages began pinging to trumpet the news that Minnesota was undergoing an unforeseen ownership shakeup that will establish Marc Stad, previously a minority shareholder, as the Wolves’ new majority owner.

Two important rumbles to pass along about the sale process …