South Sudan's hoopers won't be the pushovers Team USA may expect

Rapidly developing basketball programme South Sudan will have a major opportunity to gauge their progress ahead of the Paris Olympics as they take on Team USA on Saturday at London's O2 Arena.

The warm up, which is part of the Team USA Basketball Showcase London, will be a chance for the young South Sudan side, which features teen Basketball Africa League star and Duke Blue Devils commit Khaman Maluach, to gauge their readiness for Paris.

South Sudan will not only face LeBron James and company in the showcase, but also again in the group stage of the Olympics on July 31, sandwiched in between games against Puerto Rico and Serbia.

South Sudan assistant coach Ajou Deng, brother of Chicago Bulls legend Luol Deng, told ESPN that his team is looking forward to the multiple chances to take on the best players in the world.

He said: "Everybody gets a scout in (in warm up games). It doesn't really matter if you're playing a team the first time or the second time, but we're there to see where we're at. That's the reason we're playing.

"If we want to be better moving forward as South Sudan basketball, we don't mind playing the best. We'll play them twice, we'll play them three times, we'll play them five times. This is who we want to be.

"The road is never easy - so whoever we play, whatever our plan is going forward to the Olympics, what our plan is that we want to accomplish - it starts all the way from the first day of training camp, going all the way forward.

"There's no way around being beat to be great at some point. Either now or in the future, we cannot escape that. We cannot take shortcuts.

"We're just looking to get better - we're looking to get better as the national team; we're looking to get better overall. We're building a foundation that lasts."

When South Sudan beat Angola to qualify for the Olympics in September last year, they became the nation's first athletes to make it to Paris. The team features a number of talents aside from Maluach, including former Los Angeles Lakers center Wenyen Gabriel and BAL star Nuni Omot.

South Sudan vs Team USA will air on ESPN's channels in Africa at 9pm CAT on Saturday July 20.