Two years ago, as the WNBA was at the start of its rocketship growth, the young players who were helping women’s basketball reach new levels of popularity were notably absent from the national team at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The team won gold, but some saw it as a missed opportunity for USA Basketball to spotlight some of the biggest names in its sport, even if they were younger.
In 2026, this is a USA Basketball roster that every casual fan will be able to recognize.
To be clear, USAB, under new managing director Sue Bird and new head coach Kara Lawson, didn’t sacrifice talent at the expense of popularity. But the four new faces who are debuting for the senior national team — Aliyah Boston, Paige Bueckers, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese — will bring a lot more eyes with them.
The team announced its World Cup roster on Thursday morning, and a quartet of youngsters highlights an absolutely stacked USA roster that also includes (in alphabetical order): Napheesa Collier, Kahleah Copper, Chelsea Gray, Rhyne Howard, Kelsey Plum, Breanna Stewart, A’ja Wilson and Jackie Young. All were Olympians in 2024, though Howard was on the 3×3 team while the other seven were on the five-on-five squad.
The FIBA World Cup will be played in Berlin between Sept. 4-13, while the WNBA takes a break in action for the competition from Sept. 1-17.
The national team always tries to bring new blood into every cycle; Copper was one of six players who made her FIBA debut at the 2022 World Cup, and three of those players (Copper, Sabrina Ionescu and Alyssa Thomas) made it on the Olympic team.
Before her first camp as managing director, Bird emphasized the importance of opening up the pool. “This is a new cycle,” she said in December. “We have a lot of newness, and so you just want to get as many people in as possible to give them a chance to showcase themselves.”
The difference with this particular group of players is the potential for each to be a leader of the national team at some point in her career. Boston, Bueckers, Clark and Reese are all 24 years old, giving them a long runway to be faces of USA Basketball like Bird and Diana Taurasi before them, and Stewart and Wilson currently.
It’s a special generation of players. When Clark was a member of the USA youth national teams, she remembers Carol Callan, then the national director of USA Basketball, telling the junior members that one or two of them might end up making the senior national squad. Now, she’s heading to her first senior competition with two players she has already suited up with (and won gold with) at the U-19 level: Bueckers and Boston.
Although there is much, in Bird’s words, newness, the new guard is already following in the footsteps of the national team’s culture of participation. Whether or not they are new to the senior team, every player on the World Cup squad has sacrificed parts of her offseason to be at USA camps and competitions in college and as professionals. Reese has persisted through the USA system despite not making a team until 2023 (she was a finalist for the U-17 and U-19 rosters before being cut), and now she will be wearing red, white and blue at the second-biggest international tournament.
The commitment to USA Basketball is even more impressive in 2026 considering the timing of the World Cup. Eleven of these players are currently in playoff positions in the WNBA standings (and Plum’s team is fighting for a spot) and will have to play in postseason games two weeks to the day after the World Cup final.
Clark, Boston and Collier have all dealt with injuries this season — Collier has been available for only four games for 2026 — but they are all foregoing a potential 17-day break to fly across the world and compete for a gold medal.
Everyone who has ever been a part of the USA program understands the standard that must be met. The national team isn’t something they can drop into on Olympic years; regular attendance isn’t just rewarded, it’s expected. If any of the four players had prioritized their W teams over this tournament, the likes of Sonia Citron, Kiki Iriafen and Cameron Brink would have been waiting in the wings to take their spots. College stars JuJu Watkins, Mikayla Blakes and Sarah Strong, among others, are coming for the 2028 Olympic roster in Los Angeles.
Even if it seems like USA Basketball is turning a page with this roster, there is no guarantee how long this chapter will last. Clark and Bueckers were a cut above all other WNBA rookies historically until Lynx rookie Olivia Miles came around and they weren’t. The American talent pool is too deep to ever feel secure in one’s place with the national team.
It’s a well-deserved and long-awaited honor for Boston, Bueckers, Clark and Reese to join the senior national team. Although there are some interesting omissions — for example, Kelsey Mitchell has never been a part of the USA Basketball system, and Ionescu was at the last camp in April and part of the 2022 and 2024 teams but isn’t on this roster — this 12-player squad is pretty clearly the best that the country has to offer. Whatever politics may have plagued the decision-making process in the past don’t seem to be at play now.
Maybe that’s the new leaf that USA Basketball is turning over. This is a squad devoid of controversy but full of star power and production, exactly as it should be.
