Bradley Beal, two-time NBA All-Star guard of the Washington Wizards, talked to FIBA about one of his recent goals: To play at the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China on behalf of Team USA and bring home the championship.

"I would like to play with the national team this summer. I know that a lot of players can make it to the final roster that will go to China, but I would like to try to fight for a spot for the competition," said Beal.

The first time Beal played for his country was in 2009 at the FIBA U16 Americas Championship in Argentina. One year later, he joined the U17 Team USA and won the title at the FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup as the MVP. He was one of the finalists for USA before the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. This time, Beal also made the 18-player list for the World Cup and he did not want to miss it.

"I would like to represent my country in the world stage and to win medals and titles with Team USA. To also have the opportunity to work with the best players and some of the best coaches in America is also a great thing that I would like to experience. We have to win every game, to respect our opponents and to play at our best level from the first to the last minute of the games, no matter which team we play against," said Beal.

USA are in Group E with Turkey, Czech Republic and Japan, which means that Beal may meet his teammate, Czech point guard Tomas Satoransky at the Wizards in the group stage. "That would be so great to play against him. We talked about it a couple of times since the draw of the competition, and I have to say that I would love to compete against him during the tournament…He is proud to be an ambassador of his country in the NBA and at the international level. He can be one of the best players of the FIBA World Cup."

Beal admitted that he does not know much about Japan in basketball, but he has a better knowledge about Turkey and Czech Republic. The former has NBA-level players including Cedi Osman and Furkan Korkmaz, not to mention Ersan Ilyasova who has been playing for eight years in the NBA. As for Czech Republic, Beal already learnt from Satoransky how competitive they are.

Though USA have been dominating the basketball world for over a decade and are seen as the only candidate for champion at the 2019 Basketball World Cup, Beal did not think they could afford to be careless with their game.

"Nothing is [taken for] granted, you have to fight hard to win medals and titles and we can't start the competition thinking that the gold medal is going to be ours. Everybody wants to show their best level against Team USA, and we will have to bring our A game to win the title and bring it back home. It’s going to be a very competitive and long tournament, and we want to keep the title won in 2014."

In the 2018-19 season, though the Wizards failed to make the playoffs, Beal played the best season in his career. In 36.9 minutes per game on the court, he could drop an average of 25.6 points, 5.0 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 1.5 steals - all career highs. He proved that when John Wall can't play, Beal is totally able to lead the team as their core star.