KUALA LUMPUR (Mageshwaran's AsiaScope) - Korea head to the FIBA Basketball World Cup with a simple two-point agenda: regain the identity of an Asian team that 'always belonged' in top international competitions and retaining the dignity as the traditional powerhouses within the FIBA Asia zone.

Korea indeed are the original powerhouse in Asian basketball who have continuously remained so.

For starters, Korea had medalled at six of the first seven FIBA Asia Championship - then known as ABC Championship - including winning the gold medal at the 1969 edition in Bangkok before China even made their maiden appearance.

Korea also remain the only team to make the Semi-Finals in all but one edition of this event that is the symbol of supremacy in Asian basketball, while other erstwhile powers like the Philippines have braved some turbulent phases and those like Japan have gone on a downward spiral.

Korea have always added an additional dimension to the variety of competition bringing a flamboyant mix of speed and skill with the occasional support from size and playing well within their strengths. Of course, this unassuming style of Korean play has often run the risk of turning itself unimaginative and sometimes - unfortunately - even pedestrian.

This is the risk coach Yoo Jae-Hak faces, and is well aware of.

At last year's FIBA Asia Championship in Manila, Philippines, where Korea qualified for Spain 2014 - and return to the world's biggest basketball tournament after a gap of 16 years - the team certainly showed signs of breaking away from this risk.

Korea's international assignments this current season are clearly two-faced, but fortunately for the fans within the country and outside of it, the two are completely inter-connected.

On the one hand, Korea, like I said above, are in a top international competition after more than a decade away and they will have to prove that the interim absence was more an aberration.

And on the other hand are the overwhelming expectations of the home fans to win the gold medal at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, Korea (Sept 19-Oct 4) after a gap of a dozen years. Incidentally, the last time Korea won gold in the basketball competition of the 'Asian Olympics' was when they last hosted the event, in Busan in 2002.

And these two objectives are indeed mutually self-serving.

A good performance at the FIBA Basketball World Cup will provide the perfect platform to test the Korean bid to regain the Asian Games gold and the Asian Games gold is indeed good motivation for when Korea take on Angola, Australia, Lithuania, Mexico and Slovenia in the Group Phase of the World Cup in Gran Canaria.

Therefore, it is imperative for Yoo Jae-Hak and his men to take the two events as 'yin-yang' for Korean basketball to move forward.

Talks of a Mike D'Antoni philosophy of floor-spacing returning to the Korean style of play under the coaching of Yoo Jae-Hak are surely gaining credibility.

With the choice of Moon Tae-Jong as the naturalized player and the presence of the legendary Kim Joo-Sung, the lone player among the current lot who also was a part of the Korean team in its previous trip to a FIBA World Championship only adds strength to that philosophy.

Stakes for Korea at #Spain2014 are indeed high, and the logical conclusion of their showing at the FIBA Basketball World Cup will surely return home. In this case quite literally to Incheon!

So long…

S Mageshwaran

FIBA Asia

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