Nearly two years removed from the Athens debacle, USA Basketball’s search for a few good men has begun anew.

Earlier this week, Team USA started building its roster for this summer’s World Championships in Japan, selecting 22 players to be part of a July training camp before the roster is cut down to 12 players and three inactive reserves prior to the tournament. (The roster will be announced officially on Sunday, but was leaked Wednesday in a report by ESPN.com.)

The good news is that many of the mistakes that led to the bronze-medal finish in Athens in 2004 and the embarrassing sixth-place finish at the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis won’t be repeated.

For starters, a committee didn’t pick the roster this time. That’s now the sole province of Jerry Colangelo, the Phoenix Suns patriarch, and putting him in charge was a good choice. Not only has he demonstrated great acumen with basketball talent in his four decade career, he also gets as much respect from players as any league executive this side of Jerry West.

Second, the United States won’t make the mistake of selecting a coach who is exhausted from a recently completed NBA season. Having Larry Brown coach in Athens so soon after the NBA Finals was a disaster, and while his troubles were made worse by some of the same weaknesses we’re now seeing him demonstrate with the Knicks, George Karl fared even worse in 2002. This time around, a well-rested Mike Krzyzewski will be at the helm, with NBA head coaches (and experienced international basketball men) Mike D’Antoni and Gregg Popovich on hand as assistants.

Additionally, Colangelo is determined to select only players that genuinely want to be there. Contrary to popular belief, most of the 2004 team in Athens fit this description. But because so many players wavered before pulling out at the last minute, the roster was a thrown-together mishmash rather than the result of some grand master plan. Additionally, the team’s training camp was dramatically shorter than most of its opponents, partly in an effort to appease those star players who stayed the course.

This time, Colangelo is looking for a more serious approach, and he wasn’t shy about turning down players who weren’t going to sign up for his program. He wants a three-year commitment from the USA players, concluding with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and interviewed scores of players over the past several weeks to gauge their interest in being part of the team for the next three summers. (Depending on their fate in Japan, it’s possible that the U.S. would also have to play an Olympic qualifying tournament in 2007.)

Part of that process is a training camp in Las Vegas that the players will participate in, even though they have no guarantee of making the team. While for a few players this is less of a concern (what do you suppose the odds are of LeBron James getting the ax?), it does serve as a litmus test for a player’s interest level. Colangelo’s thought process seems to be that if it’s not worth the risk of possibly getting cut, the player probably wouldn’t have been a very interested or motivated performer anyway.

A last consideration is roster composition. The last two American teams were victimized by poor player selection, stocking too many players who thrived in the NBA’s one-on-one game but couldn’t cope with the packed-in zone defenses international opponents threw at them.

Colangelo made a few steps in this direction, although he didn’t quite go all the way. Of the game’s truly great shooters, he tabbed only one – Milwaukee’s Michael Redd. Unfortunately, Redd is getting married this summer and reportedly has been excused from the event by Colangelo, so he’s out of the picture. The next-best shooter, Detroit’s Chauncey Billups, won’t be visiting the Land of the Rising Sun either because his wife is expecting a child.

Those two will at least be in Beijing in 2008, but several other top-notch shooters, notably Seattle’s Ray Allen, New Jersey’s Vince Carter, and Houston’s Tracy McGrady, decided not to sign up at all. (By the way, before you rip their patriotism please note that all have worn the USA jersey before, with Allen and Carter teaming up to win a gold medal in Sydney in 2000).

That leaves the 2006 roster with several good shooters – James, Kobe Bryant, Gilbert Arenas, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Paul Pierce, Joe Johnson, and Rashard Lewis – but no great ones. And while this is a far sight better than the ugliness of 2004, when nonshooters like Stephon Marbury, Allen Iverson, and Richard Jefferson attempted in vain to stretch defenses from the outside, it’s still a mild concern.

Speaking of which, we should probably bring up the most glaring omission from the U.S. team – Iverson. The Answer is unquestionably at the top of his game and made no bones about his desire to play for the U.S. again. Plus, most observers agree that he played the hardest of any American player in 2004.

Unfortunately, his game translates very poorly to the international style because of his poor outside shot. So as crazy as it sounds, he might not be good enough, especially with the plethora of talented guards Colangelo signed up. One has to wonder if Iverson was left off to spare him the embarrassment of being cut later in the summer.

Other than the Iverson omission, the biggest surprises were at the end of the roster, where the U.S. included two players – Luke Ridnour of Seattle and Antawn Jamison of Washington – that absolutely nobody expected to be on the team. One has to wonder if Colange lo selected them solely as training camp fodder for Vegas. The other eyebrow raiser is Spurs defensive stopper Bruce Bowen, who has a great chance of being on the final roster. He’ll be expected to shadow high scorers like Argentina’s Manu Ginobili, Germany’s Dirk Nowitzki, and France’s Tony Parker.

Although a roster has been set, the team isn’t quite complete yet. Colangelo reportedly extended an invitation to Shaquille O’Neal, who has yet to make up his mind and will be allowed to take his time doing so. Additionally, the team is holding three roster spots for younger players, with the idea that they would participate in the training camp and get a feel for the system before being called upon in 2008. The favorites for those three slots are thought to be Gonzaga’s Adam Morrision, Duke’s J.J. Redick, and high school phenom Greg Oden.

Of course, no roster will remain ironclad over a three-year period. Nonetheless, the U.S. squad seems off to a good start. Two years ago, USA Basketball opted to ignore the lessons of the sixth-place finish in Indianapolis, and thus was doomed to repeat it in Athens. This time, they’ve taken a different course, and one that looks so far like it will be much more successful.

Mr. Hollinger is the author of the 2005-06 Pro Basketball Forecast. He can be reached at jhollinger@nysun.com.