The future of 3x3 basketball is here (F like Fabian)
It was a busy week in FIBA3x3, compiling the list of 9 (3x3) topics below was relatively easy. Enjoy!
Intro
As we all know 3 is a magic number and guess what, it is the 3rd edition of our newsletter, so expect some magic ;).
Thanks to all reading this, please share if you like it! Remember, we are on X too, and our FB group is slowly growing - you can always give it a boost.
Please let us introduce Mr. Future of basketball 3x3. Can you recognize the player? Answer below.
Interesting facts about 3x3 basketball
Back to the basics, probably most important 3x3 community worldwide and, as usual, a few words about BIG3.
Official 3x3 basketball rules explained
It is worth to remind ourselves the rules from time to time. We are still at the starting phase of our newsletter, so why don’t start with the official FIBA3x3 basketball rules? The federation prepared very nice and practical repository, where you can find full version of the rules (74 pages long pdf file), interpretations (27 pages) and many more, useful for referees, tournament organisation staff, fans and players of course. Another very useful page is competition structure of FIBA3x3 World Tour, Pro Tour and National Teams. It is a huge knowledge repository, so reserve some time to go through all of them.
For those preferring video over pdf files, the best starting point is the video below:
It’s much better to cheer your team being an educated fan, so learn the rules and enjoy the games!
3x3 basketball communities around the world
Did you know that 3x3 basketball is the most popular sport in Mongolia? They have a TV channel dedicated to streetball! Their Facebook profile has 218k followers and Instagram one - 28k. But to feel the climate of the country and know the key people of Mongolian 3x3 we recommend you two following videos. First, meet Delgernyam Davaasambuu and his family:
Another legend, coming from Canada, acting in Mongolia, is our favourite player of all time so far - Steve Sir. After watching this, we like him and appreciate his shooting skills even more:
BIG3
Schedule is already announced. Season 8 start on June 14th, finishes August 24th. Mark your calendars.
FIBA 3x3 World Tour
Two pro tour tournaments in one weekend… means it was a good one!
Week summary
Happy to see Lithuanians victory in China! Well deserved by hardworking team with stable roster, always showing the true love for 3x3.
Masters in Chengdu showed us two interesting faces of the game: the current and the future one. The second one was impersonated by Fabian Giessmann (Bonn).
The future of 3×3 basketball faced its history, the most promising player had to compete with the most successful ones so far. Watch how history of 3x3 responds to the future of the game facing the elimination threat. Classic game!
Chinese event also proved, that 3x3 basketball is still a big boys’ game. Jonathan Dubas (Lausanne) and Dianliang Zhang (Chongming) had a fantastic first day of the tournament, and together with Giessmann were a very strong candidates for MVP title.
After Chengdu masters we have added three new teams to our power ranking below. One of them is Shinagava . The challenger they won apparently was no accident! In this tournament they lost narrowly two matches, both to players with Olympic Games gold on their resume. Here they are in a clash with Latvians from Chongming:
Lusail Challenger was pretty interesting and intensive, too. In the group stage, Partizan showed how to win the two games they almost lost, and Lugano showed how to lose the games they almost won.
Final triumph of Toulouse against Liman is definitely worth watching:
#3x3PowerRanking
TOP15 teams in the world, in our opinion. Since the previous one, three teams were added.
Format: position, team, position change, current FIBA3x3 ranking, reason.
Amsterdam, +1, 2, two Masters = two finals, will they win next one?
Miami, -1, 3, unbeaten in WT, but apparently second locally.
Toulouse, +1, 4, tough win in Lusail Challenger final.
Raudondvaris, +2, 5, masters of Chengdu Masters.
UB, -2 , 1, Maestro lost his shooting a week ago, this week Dr Strange also struggled.
Liman, -1, 8, they need to add something to be back in top 3.
Riffa, -, 7, haven’t played this week.
Vienna, -, 6, took a break.
Partizan, -, 9, 3rd in Lusail Challenger, just after Toulouse and Liman.
Chongming, -, 11, 2 wins and 2 loses in Chengdu, but still top 10.
Hangzhou, new, 16, best Serbian team? Not yet, but…
Lausanne, -1, 12, still needs to click in, especially in defence.
Ulaanbaatar, -1, 13, after adding Gankhuyag they look promising.
Shinagawa, new, 22, Chengdu minimal losses showed they are in WT for real.
London, new, 10, with Jerome Desrosiers it is a different team.
Predictions
This week only one pro tour tournament is planned: Korean Hongcheon Challenger. Both Riffa and Lausanne cannot feel like favorites of their groups. You can expect some positive surprises from both Utrecht and Bonn teams, with Raudondvaris ready to win it all, again. However, with the modified roster, we would bet against Lithuanians in the quarterfinal against the Serbians.
3x3 basketball national teams
BIG3 section today is very short, but it doesn’t mean that the streetball in the US had a break. Quite opposite, the most important tournament of the year took place this weekend.
Congratulations to the new USA 3x3 basketball champions!
The championship titles went to teams... created for the tournament. It is likely that we will no longer see these names in any official event. In the women's category, the “Chaos” team won all 6 games, including the final, after overtime! The roster:
Milaysia Fulwiley
Christina Dalce
Cierra Burdick
Lazaria Spearman
The US 2025 3×3 basketball champions are the “Uncle Sam” team:
Miller Kopp (did not play in the finals due to injury) - 26 years old, 201 cm, champion of the NBA G League, playing for Oklahoma City Blue, scoring there almost 13 points per game and making more than 40% shots from distance.
Devin Gilligan - 31 years old, 196 cm, a basketball globetrotter, recently in the ... Swedish league.
Joe Wieskamp - 25 years old, 198 cm, number 41 in the 2021 draft, with short episodes in the San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Raptors
Taylor Funk - 27 years old, 203 cm, played in the NBA summer league, but never went beyond the G League.
In the finals they clearly defeated the favorites (at least in our opinion), the Omaha team, on the World Tour performing as Miami, the winners of the first Masters this year. Interestingly, they accomplished this playing without substitutions!
The entire final day of the US championship looked like this:
Conclusions after watching? In our opinion, at this stage, we should not draw too many. But the Americans should act, as soon as possible. We seriously think that Jimmer Fredette has a problem to solve.
The Women’s Series 2025 started
The tournament in Chengdu ended without a surprise, but it was still a pleasure to watch. The Netherlands team did not lose a single match in the tournament, and Noortje Driessen was elected MVP.
It was one of the more one-sided tournaments in history, the winners were not threatened for a single moment, winning all games by a lead exceeding 10 points on average!
If you are thirsty for fierce women's 3×3 basketball, let us recommend the best game of the entire tournament. The Chinese and Thai teams’ quarterfinal:
FIBA3x3 World Cup 2026 in Warsaw, Poland!
We couldn't not write about it. World Championships in our country! The announcement was made during a press conference in Warsaw. We are extremely excited and looking forward to meeting you all in our homeland. See you in June 2026!