IF BRITAIN'S basketball team makes it to the London 2012 Games, an Olympic best performance is guaranteed.

 

The only other British representatives to feature in basketball at the Games finished 20th out of 23 teams on the home ground of London in 1948.

 

And as only 12 nations will feature when competition gets underway in the capital's Olympic Park, the home players could hardly fail to improve on the effort of their predecessors.

 

So there it is.

 

Relative success guaranteed.

 

The only problem now is making sure that the home team actually get to what promises to be the biggest sporting party in the nation's history.

 

Unlike those other domestic sports which have switched into hyperdrive following London's successful bid for the Games, such as handball and volleyball, basketball does not have the safety net of automatic qualification on the grounds of being the host team.

 

Britain's mixture of talented youngsters and experienced professionals need to establish themselves among the elite European powers in order to avoid what would be the huge anti-climax of being spectators at their own Games.

 

Which means the pressure is on Britain's American head coach, Chris Finch.

 

Speaking to insidethegames from Belgium this week, where he coaches the Dexia Mons-Hainaut team in the national league, the man from Philadelphia acknowledged the difficulty of the task ahead as his team attempts to maintain or improve the level it has reached in getting through to next year's European Championships in Poland, an achievement not managed since 1981.

 

"Basketball the Olympic crown jewel"

 

"Basketball is a truly global sport, and in terms of TV appeal it is probably the crown jewel for the Olympics," says Finch, who made his name playing and then coaching at Sheffield Sharks to huge success in the 90s.

 

'"It is not going to be easy to reach London 2012, but the good news is that we are doing what we have been told we have to do."

 

Depending on who you listened to in the wake of this month's UK Sport's announcement that basketball funding in the next Olympic cycle will rise from £5.06 million to £8.75 million, Britain has either an outside chance or not the faintest chance of getting onto the medal podium in London.

 

Leading the naysayers was the British Judo Association's chief executive Scott McCarthy, who criticised the decision to offer the sport more than his own was awarded.

 

"I played basketball, it's my sport and I love it, and I can tell you there is absolutely no hope of the Great Britain team winning an Olympic medal in the next 20 years," McCarthy said.

 

Finch, not surprisingly, begs to differ.

 

"The ability to medal in London is no longer out of our reach," he says.

 

"We are not there yet - but then we don't have to play in the Olympics this summer."

 

Britain's "bona fide superstar"

 

What feeds Finch's confidence is the presence in his team of a 23-year-old whom he describes "a bona fide superstar" - Luol Deng (pictured).

 

The American clearly believes the man who signed a six-year deal with the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Chicago Bulls this summer worth a minimum of $70 million (£46.8 million) can be as charismatic for his national team as Yao Ming is for China.

 

"He is a wonderful kid, a fantastic player, very well spoken, very humble," says Finch.

 

"He is the ideal talisman for our team, and I believe he will be one of the faces of London 2012."

 

Deng - born, aptly enough, in the Sudanese town of Wow before he and his family sought political asylum in Britain - was appointed as an ambassador for the London Olympics shortly after making his debut for the national team last year.

 

Although he takes no more than the standard match fee of £70, the British Basketball Federation still had to stump up £200,000 of their Lottery funding to insure him for Britain's successful European Championship qualifying matches in the autumn.

 

Bona fide superstars don't come cheap - even when they want to.

 

Persuading Deng, his Chicago Bulls team-mate Ben Gordon and former George Washington NCAA star Pops Mensah-Bonsu to sign up for the British cause has been a crucial factor in Finch's successful transformation of the national fortunes.

 

If this were football, there would be an Alex Ferguson figure raging about his players being distracted from their club cause by their country.

 

But the NBA is keen for its highly-paid star performers to return to their national duties and help raise their profile around the world.

 

NBA gearing for post-2012 pay-off

 

Earlier this month, NBA Commissioner David Stern pinpointed the London 2012 Games as "a key demarcation point" in assessing how its planned colonisation of Europe in general, and Britain in particular, is working.

 

"We are gearing for a very large payoff in terms of growth and revenue after the Olympics in 2012," Stern added.

 

Finch sees the presence in his squad of NBA players as a massive opportunity to build what could be a hugely productive partnership.

 

"The NBA has long felt that Britain is a great untapped market," he says.

 

"It's no coincidence they recently moved their European base to London.

 

"They are offering to help us strengthen the game here and improve our Olympic challenge, so now it is a case of sitting down and working out the best way of doing that.

 

"They can be key marketing and media partners for us.

 

"That is how they like to do business."

 

And Finch believes the NBA now has a decent chance of dealing with a game which has put behind it the fragmentation that besets so many British sports.

 

"I have always thought that sport in Britain is over-politicised and under-funded," Finch said. '

 

"Although obviously we were pleased at the level of support we got this month from UK Sport, which I think recognised the fact that basketball is a marquee event at the Games, and that to miss out on a British team taking part in 2012 would be really regrettable.

 

"I have been in the British game since 1993, and I feel for the first time that all the different parties - British Basketball, the Home Nation federations, the professional British Basketball League and even schools basketball - are ready to pull the whole thing together."

 

Time will tell.

 

But with Luol Deng on board, all things seem possible…

 

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now freelancing and will be writing regularly for insidethegames