5 Young international NBA players ready to lead their country to glory

Jaime Jaquez Jr., Mexico

This one might be a shot in the dark, but this year’s 18th overall pick will become the 6th Mexican to step into an NBA game in a few months. Mexico is currently ranked 31st in the FIBA rankings, and 8th in the Americas.

Mexico will be appearing in next month’s FIBA World Cup for the first time since 2014 and only the 6th time ever. It’s an impressive feat, and there is an opportunity for Mexico to show out. Their group of Lithuania, Montenegro, and Egypt isn’t super strong, so if they can squeak out a win against Lithuania or Montenegro despite being less talented, that would be monumental.

They have not appeared in the Olympics since 1976, but they have had some success at the FIBA AmeriCup in the last decade. They won gold in the 2013 edition, bronze in 2017, and 6th in the most recent 2022 edition.

It feels like the coming FIBA World Cup will show a lot for Mexico on the national scene. How will they perform with an opportunity in front of them, especially with no NBA players? Jaquez will not be playing, nor will Juan Toscano-Anderson. If they can play well and finish the top two in their group, they will be guaranteed a top-16 finish. In 2014, they finished 14th. A similar result would be amazing for Mexico considering that their two premier players will not be present.

Jaquez has only suited up for Mexico once, and that wasn’t even in an official FIBA event. It came in the 2019 Pan American Games when Jaquez was just 18. Mexico finished 7th of the 8 competing teams. Stats are nearly impossible to find on the internet, but what could be found is that Jaquez scored 17 points in their final game, helping them finish 7th rather than dead last.

It will be interesting to see the next time Jaquez wears the green Mexican jerseys, and my guess would be that it could certainly be next year in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament (this is assuming they do not directly qualify for the Olympics in the FIBA World Cup).

Simply put, we don’t know how good Jaquez will be, which is why I started with how this one may be a shot in the dark. He looked good in his limited Summer League action but suffered a shoulder injury that held him out for the entirety of the Vegas Summer League.

It feels like he could certainly be Mexico’s best player and help them move up a tier of international American basketball to consistently rival the teams like Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.