MADRID – The confetti falls, the star-spangled banner plays and the USA Basketball illusion plays itself out again and again. Here come the Duke and Syracuse coaches hugging the NBA stars, primping for pictures that they'll rush through texts and Twitter to star recruits. Pity poor Serbia, the silver-medalist props to a college recruiting video.

The World Cup of Basketball is a wonderful event, a well-run, well-coordinated tournament with pride and history and gravitas. It is something else, too: beneath the threshold of worthiness for NBA stars to participate. For Indiana Pacers star Paul George to have broken his leg in a televised pick-up game on the Vegas strip never felt as senseless as did watching the United States hang 129 points on Serbia in the gold-medal game Sunday at Palacio de los Deportes.

Outside of Derrick Rose using FIBA as a Double-A rehab assignment and some sportswriters beefing up on Marriott points for post-summer vacations, this tournament was a waste of everyone's time and resources. They used to call it the World Championships. Now it's the World Cup of Basketball. This is certain: It has outlived its usefulness for the NBA, and owners and executives will be wise to petition FIBA to reshape the future of international basketball.

As one GM told Yahoo Sports, "[Outside of the U.S. team], there's more talent and more interest from basketball fans in the NBA summer league than this event."

View photos Mike Krzyzewski hugs former Duke players Kyrie Irving and Mason Plumlee after the gold-medal game. (Getty Images) More

For all the inspiration the U.S. coaches and players tried to drain out of George's injury, understand something: It was in vain. He lost a year of his career for the chance to play in a tournament that few watched back home, and even fewer felt mesmerized by across the world. The risk-reward for NBA stars participating in FIBA tournaments has never been so low, the gains of the Mike Krzyzewskis and Jim Boeheims on the bench so high.

George will be the impetus to end the full participation of NBA stars, but far from the reason. After the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the World Cup of Basketball and Olympic Games are destined to become an under-22 developmental tournament.

"We need to get our vets out and move our younger players in," one NBA general manager told Yahoo Sports. "The support's there for the change, and it's getting stronger."

No more grinding down of Pau Gasol and Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker as thirty-something stars for countries that desperately need them to compete, no more Yao Ming dragging a battered leg up and down the floor for China. Rival countries to the United States don't have the depth of Team USA's talent, nor the reinforcements to let stars sit out qualifying events, to excuse them to nurse injuries.

Sooner than later, people will understand: Those most stridently touting the irreplaceable value of USA Basketball are those profiting the greatest from it.

As much as ever, USA Basketball has been co-opted into a Krzyzewski leverage play for the Duke Blue Devils. If that doesn't rile Kentucky's John Calipari, wait until the Duke coach is credited for DeMarcus Cousins' maturity with the Sacramento Kings this season.

The end's coming for USA Basketball's grip on the game in the States, but once change goes into effect come the 2018 World Cup, it won't matter much to Krzyzewski anymore. He still has two full summers of USA Basketball access left to him, and that'll make it a full decade of control. As one Duke alumnus would tell you: There is a USA Basketball storefront selling patriotism and duty with a backroom reality that peddles the Blue Devils and Nike swooshes.

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