Minnesota Timberwolves Naz Reid joins this elite group

The Minnesota Timberwolves are certainly staying very active this offseason. While the Timberwolves had their starting five players under contract through the 2023-24 NBA season, the Timberwolves front office understood that the team needed to revamp their bench. But in the process, the Wolves could not allow key contributors to slip through their fingers. Backup center Naz Reid is one such player.

And it appears as though all of the hard work has paid off. The Minnesota Timberwolves, a team whose roster is suddenly bursting with international competitors, is adding one more player to that prestigious list:

It’s a well-deserved honor. But before we go any further, we should explain how this works.

FIBA Select team is the USA junior varsity team for World Cup

For the USA Team, there is the full-service FIBA World Cup team. But for practice and future players, the USA team also creates the Select team. What is the USA Select Team?

It’s a 12-man roster made up of younger NBA players who exhibit sufficient upside to be considered as future candidates for the United States Senior National Team. They accompany the USA team to Las Vegas to practice and scrimmage against the full-service USA team to help them train them for the upcoming FIBA World Cup.

The USA Select Team is not eligible to compete in the official World Cup competition. But players named to the USA Select Team roster often are named to the USA Team in future years as members of the team that will compete for the World Cup.

The Minnesota Timberwolves boast a large number of players competing in the 2023 FIBA World Cup, representing a number of international teams. So it seems that the Timberwolves will be well represented in 2024 and beyond as well.