The time is quickly approaching for Argentina’s national team players to launch their preparations for the FIBA Americas Championship in Mar Del Plata.

It remains to be seen if stars Luis Scola, Manu Ginobili, Andres Nocioni and Carlos Delfino will be among them because of the insurance quandary caused by the NBA lockout.

"This has to be resolved in 15 days time because all the teams will soon begin training,” Argentina Basketball Confederation president German Vaccaro said to FIBA.com.

“Argentina will start training on July 29.

“In our case, I’m optimistic that Argentina will have all of their players to play in the tournament we are hosting."

The cost of the insurance?

"We know it´s a lot of money, but we are not sure exactly,” Vaccaro said.

“What we have heard is that a player who has a three-year contract and is not one of the highest earners but an average one, if we had to insure him for the three years, we would be talking about 300,000 US dollars.

“So we are talking about an amount that would be unreachable for any federation.”