International summer basketball is here. It means (almost) nothing

Good morning. Get the stick, it's time to beat a dead horse again. Figuratively. Plus: we're going to look ahead to Christmas. Let's basketball.

It's summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and it's a year after the Olympics, so men's basketball teams are getting ready for continental tournaments like EuroBasket and the AmeriCup and AfroBasket and the FIBA Asia Cup. (We need a better name for the FIBA Asia Cup.) We're seeing clips of svelte Luka Doncic playing for Slovenia, Lauri Markkanen dominating for Finland and Norm Powell rampaging on behalf of Jamaica.

You won't see any stars on the Team USA roster heading to Managua, Nicaragua, for AmeriCup, though. Javonte Smart and Langston Galloway are probably the most famous players on the team. Canada hasn't released its roster yet, but it's unlikely you'll see the reigning NBA MVP out there. Australia didn't take any of its many NBA players to the Asia Cup, where they are quietly in the knockouts. AfroBasket tips off this week; the biggest names (for American fans) will be Mo Bamba and Yves Missi.

EuroBasket is a different story: Nikola Jokic, Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Markkanen, Franz Wagner, Alperen Sengun and more are playing this summer. This is awesome given that most of the tippy-top players in the league are European. Big stars playing basketball is awesome for fans. The reason the European stars are largely playing – don't look at the French roster – is because EuroBasket means something to the best players from Europe. The reason no stars from the United States, Canada, Australia, the South American nations or the African nations are playing is because those other continental tournaments have lost all meaning.

Yes, I'm going to complain about FIBA World Cup qualification again.