BARCELONA (Euroleague) - A new season is underway in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and one thing is certain. Players that are headed to next year's Rio de Janeiro Games or one of the three FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments (OQTs) are going to have big impacts on this continental club competition.

Defending champions Real Madrid are in action at Khimki Moscow Region, last season's Eurocup winners, on Thursday.

Several Real stars are all but assured of traveling to Rio.

They are Spain national team players Sergio Llull, Sergio Rodriguez, Felipe Reyes and Rudy Fernandez, Lithuania's Jonas Maciulis and Argentina's Andres Nocioni.

Llull, Rodriguez, Reyes and Fernandez all reached the top of the podium for Spain.

Maciulis had an incredible EuroBasket, too.

He was rewarded with a spot on the All-Star Five after some gritty and at times spectacular performances.

Spain and Lithuania clinched spots at the Rio Olympics when they reached the Final of EuroBasket 2015 in France.

Nocioni's Argentina also booked their place by making it to the title game of the 2015 FIBA Americas Championship in Mexico City.

Nocioni was an all-tournament selection.

One of his best performances came against the Dominican Republic.

Willy Hernangomez, a Real youngster who was in Spain's EuroBasket squad, will also have a good chance to make the roster that travels to Brazil.

Zalgiris Kaunas, who open their Euroleague campaign on Thursday in Poland against Stelmet Zielona Gora, are another Euroleague squad that is loaded with Olympic-bound players.

Lithuanians Mantas Kalnietis, Paulius Jankunas and Renaldas Seibutis are all in the side, as well as veteran center Robertas Javtokas and Lukas Lekavicius.

They were members of this summer's EuroBasket squad.

Jonas Kazlauskas is also likely to try to bring Zalgiris guard Martynas Pocius, who was unavailable this summer, back into the squad.

Zalgiris have Brock Motum, a key player in the Australia team that played at the FIBA Basketball World Cup and also this summer when the Boomers won the FIBA Oceania Championship to qualify for Rio.

FC Barcelona's Pau Ribas had a strong debut with Spain this summer and looks set to be on the plane to Brazil while the Blaugrana's new signing Shane Lawal was instrumental for a Nigeria team that won in Tunisia the AfroBasket title for the first time to qualify for the Olympics.

Lawal nearly averaged a double-double at the AfroBasket for D'Tigers at 9.3 points and 9 rebounds per game.

Mindaugas Kuzminskas of Unicaja Malaga was a standout in the Lithuania team who will be at the Olympics.

Lokomotiv Kuban's Victor Claver (Spain) and Ryan Broekhoff (Australia) will also be in Rio with their respective national teams.

There will be plenty of players headed to OQTs in Euroleague action this week, including AC Milan's Alessandro Gentile.

Gentile was a key player for Italy at EuroBasket 2015 and helped the Azzurri finish sixth.

Fenerbahce Istanbul, who open their Euroleague campaign at home against FC Bayern Munich, have several players that will be headed to OQTs next summer after performing well this summer.

They are Luigi Datome (Italy), Nikola Kalinic, Bogdan Bogdanovic (both Serbia), Jan Vesely (Czech Republic) and Kostas Sloukas (Greece).

FIBA