Lockout Cancels USA Exhibition

Fallout from the NBA lockout hit USA Basketball Wednesday.

USA Basketball canceled an exhibition game for the team that will represent the United States in next month's World Championship because there is no team. It has yet to be reassembled after 12 NBA players were dropped because of the lockout.

The team was to have played the Goodwill Games squad in an exhibition game July 14.

Warren Brown, executive director of USA Basketball, said the game was canceled "because of the expected need for additional training time for the new USA World Championship Team."

The Goodwill Games team is another USA Basketball Team -- consisting of top collegians and coached by Minnesota's Clem Haskins.

Brown said the USA team would train through July 14 in Chicago.

Plans are for 24 players to be invited to pre-World Championship training for the 1998 USA Basketball team with the finalists training at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago July 8-14. After the 12-member USA Team is selected, the squad will train July 16-23 in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

The 1998 FIBA World Championships is scheduled for July 21-Aug. 9 in Athens, Greece.

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