6. Slovenia
Another team where the question becomes how far a single player can take a country. In this case, the burden falls upon Luka Doncic.
Slovenia hasn’t broken through on the international stage yet. This is the country’s fourth World Cup appearance, but they’ve never finished better than seventh. At last year’s EuroBasket 2022, they suffered an upset at the hands of Poland during the quarterfinals.
Doncic did guide Slovenia to a gold medal at EuroBasket 2017, though the true star of that team was teammate Goran Dragic. Slovenia also made the Olympics for the first time thanks to Doncic, with the team finishing one victory away from a medal.
Doncic already had an injury scare during an exhibition this month after knocking knees in a game against the Greek squad. Luckily, Doncic appears to have come out of the incident unscathed. This team goes as he goes.
On the injury front, teammate Vlatko Cancar wasn’t so lucky. The Denver Nuggets reserve tore his ACL during a recent exhibition. The injury will definitely take him out of the World Cup and might take him out of the NBA regular season, too.
While Goran Dragic is no longer around, younger brother Zoran, who had a cup of coffee in the NBA, is playing once again. Klemen Prepelic and Mike Tobey are good role players for the small nation, too.
Still, this team will go as far as Doncic carries them. Considering how dominant some of his performances can be on the international level, that might be quite far.