James Harden expressed his desire to play in the FIBA Basketball World Cup in China this summer.

"Of course I want to play. It's an opportunity to represent your country, go out there and play basketball. It's something I love doing. If that opportunity presents itself, I'll be in. Not everyone gets that opportunity. As a basketball player, that's one of the highest points you can get for basketball," said Harden.

Harden averaged 14.2 points for the 2014 team that won the gold medal in Spain.

Kobe Bryant praised the tactical approach of European basketball while doing press for the FIBA World Cup drawing. 

"It gave me a huge advantage actually because when I grew up playing overseas, I was learning the fundamentals of the game. I wasn't learning the between-the-legs, behind-the-back stuff. I was learning just tactical things like moving without the ball or making the fundamentally sound passes, left hand, right hand. How to use the angle on the bank shot. How to hide behind screens - just all the tactical things. We would have been lucky to scrimmage and play once a week. We'd be really lucky to do that. I think it gave me a huge advantage, so when I came back to America, the kids didn't know how to do that. And you couldn't learn to do that in one day or one week. That stuff had to be taught over years whereas between-the-legs and behind-the-back, I could learn that in a week," said Bryant.

Bryant added that if he could have been teammates with one player from the international game, it would have been Dimitris Diamantidis from Greece

"I love and wish I had him. His length and his size, and what he could do defensively, I would have loved to have another player on the wing who could harass little point guards."

USA Basketball were drawn in Group E alongside Turkey, the Czech Republic, and Japan for this summer's FIBA World Cup championship. The tournament begins in China on August 31st.

The U.S. roster won't be decided until after the NBA season, although James Harden has expressed his desire to play.

"As a basketball player, that's one of the highest points you can get for basketball. Obviously, you've got the NBA and you have winning a championship and all that good stuff, but with this, you're not just playing for your respective cities or where you're from, you're playing for an entire country you represent," said Harden.

The U.S., ranked #1 in the world, are going for their third straight championship. 

Jeff Van Gundy said he was initially caught off-guard by the physicality of FIBA play after taking over as the head coach of the U.S. men's basketball team.

"I was an absolute novice when I came to FIBA basketball, learning day by day about how good the teams are, how hard they play, just how rough FIBA (competition) is. That’s nineties playoff basketball in the NBA, hand-to-hand combat, fist down your throat, elbow in your chest, on every possession. You have to get used to it and you have to embrace the differences," said Van Gundy.

Van Gundy warned USA Basketball that the level of international play continues to improve. 

"These windows have to serve as a warning for USA Basketball to grow even more because all of these teams are getting better and we were very fortunate to qualify. Having taken part in them, I think they've been positive for teams that don't get to play much together, like Cuba, Panama and Venezuela, who grew so much. I think FIBA has, as its primary objective, growing basketball on a global level. And the windows work in order to achieve this objective."

Over 90,000 tickets have been sold for a two-game summer series between Team USA and the Australian Boomers as each team prepares for the FIBA World Cup.

The games, to be played at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, would potentially pit Ben Simmons and LeBron James.

"I think he would like to play for coach Popovich, but of all the athletes, LeBron probably has the most going on both on and off the court. I mean we would love to have him ... who wouldn't, right? He played in the World Cup in '06, then didn't play in '10 and '14, but he enjoys the Olympics as well," said USA Basketball national team director Sean Ford.

Simmons hasn't confirmed whether he will play in the World Cup.

"He's in the middle of a season where they are legitimately hopeful of going deep into the playoffs, then there's contracts coming up and all sorts of things. There's no question we would love for him to play but at the same time we understand he's got a lot to figure out over the coming months. We're hopeful but I couldn't say (for sure) and I don't think anybody could," added Basketball Australia acting chief executive Paul Maley.

The Houston Rockets and Toronto Raptors will play two preseason games at the Saitama Super Arena just outside of Tokyo.

Scheduled for October 8th and 10th, it will be the first time a NBA team has played in Japan since 2003.