SAN FRANCISCO (USA) - Felipe Minzer of Argentina, Dash Daniels of Australia, Hayden Jones of New Zealand, Ali Assran of Egypt and Lithuania duo Dovydas Buika and Arturas Butajevas are among the many FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup stars set to take part in this month's Basketball Without Borders (BWB) Global camp.
The ninth annual BWB Global camp will take place February 14-16 at the Golden State Valkyries Performance Center.
Players coming from 22 countries make up the 40 BWB Global campers.
Minzer, a 1.97M (6'6") shooting guard averaged 17.4 points per game while nailing 8 of his 19 shots from the arc at the U17 World Cup.
Five Australians have been invited, including four from Australia's U17 World Cup roster led by Daniels, the younger brother of NBA and Olympic star Dyson Daniels. Alexander Dickeson, Ayak Nyuon and Mading Kuany were also in that Australia team that had plenty of talent but struggled to a 15th place finish. They have also been listed on the preliminary roster for the Emus at the U19 World Cup later this year.
Jones, a leading player in the New Zealand team that came in fourth at the U17 World Cup, will be the lone representative from his country. Jones, the son of Tall Blacks legend Phill Jones, averaged 11.6 points per game. Jones has committed to play for the Wisconsin Badgers next season, where another Tall Black legend, Kirk Penney, is on the coaching staff.
One of the many great talents in Africa, 2.05M (6'9") power forward Assran, averaged 11.4 points, 6.9 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game for Egypt at the U17 World Cup.
A traditional hotbed of hoops in Europe, Lithuania's two leading scorers at the U17 World Cup, Buika and Butajevas, will rub shoulders with these outstanding talents and more.
The top high-school-age prospects will work on on-court development, play in 5-on-5 games and receive life-skills development programming.
NBA Coaching Development Program members Juan Dixon, Yolanda Moore, Damon Jones and Emeka Okafor will oversee the event.
There have been 116 BWB campers to have made it to the NBA, including the 27 current NBA players who participated in BWB Global.
Duke freshman big Khaman Maluach of South Sudan won the playoff and defensive MVP awards at last year's BWB event. He played for Sudan at the Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament Paris 2024 and at the FIBA Basketball World Cup in 2023.
FIBA