ISTANBUL (2015 FIBA U19 World Championship) - If the recent past is any indication, many of the top players who will compete at this summer's FIBA U19 World Championship have a long prosperous professional career coming - some in the very near future.

Some of the leading players at the U19 Worlds taking place from 27 June-5 July in Heraklion (Crete), Greece will likely be Americans Malik Newman, Ivan Raab, Diamond Stone and Jaylen Brown; Jamal Murray and Dillon Brooks from Canada, Croatians Dragan Bender and Lovro Mazalin, Turkey’s Furkan Korkmaz and Egeman Guven, Serbian Vanja Marinkovic, Australian Isaac Humphries and China’s Zhou Qi among others.

Two summers ago Dario Saric, Dante Exum, Aaron Gordon, Jahlil Okafor and Vasilije Micic wowed the basketball globe at the 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship, being named to the All-Tournament Team with Gordon winning the MVP award in 2013 in Prague.

All five players have taken the next step in their development and appear primed to have wildly successful careers. But the list of players from the championship two summers ago who impressed both in Prague and since is quite long. It is also interesting to note that the class of 2013 seems to be better than the one from 2011.

Jonas Valanciunas led all players in scoring and rebounding at the 2011 FIBA U19 World Championship in Latvia and won the MVP award in guiding Lithuania to the title.

But while Valanciunas has excelled in the NBA and the Lithuania senior national team, the rest of the All-Tournament Team has yet to really wow people. None of Russia's Dmitry Kulagin, Hugh Greenwood of Australia, American Jeremy Lamb and Aleksandar Cvetkovic of Serbia has been able to move into the upper class of players now four summers out.

That is not to say that the 2011 U19 Worlds did not have any talent. Some of the other players who have shined since then are Saric, Mario Hezonja, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Przemyslaw Karnowski, Kevin Pangos and Wang Zhelin.

The 2013 group seems to have more firepower at the top and much more depth as far as high impact players.

Saric and Exum have already established presences with their respective senior national teams with both playing at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

Exum also held his own in his rookie NBA season with the Utah Jazz, averaging 4.7 points, 2.4 assists and 1.6 rebounds with 12 games scoring in double digits and one game with 12 assists.

Gordon had a mediocre NBA rookie season for the Orlando Magic, averaging 5.1 points and 3.5 rebounds as he missed about two months of the season with foot surgery.

While Exum and Gordon have started their NBA career, the other three members of the 2013 U19 Worlds All-Tournament Team are still waiting to make that jump.

Saric has been outstanding this season with Anadolu Efes, averaging about 10 points, six rebounds and more than two assists. The Croatian is expected to soon make the move to the NBA for the Philadelphia 76ers.

Micic is also property of the 76ers and has averaged about 7.5 points, more than three assists and about 1.5 rebounds for German club Bayern Munich.

Okafor meanwhile lived up to his star status and dominated most of the season in NCAA college basketball, helping Duke University to the 2015 title as he averaged 17.5 points, 8.6 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 1.3 assists. Okafor is considered a top-two pick for the 2015 NBA Draft.

But there was so much more talent from the 2013 tournament than just those five players.

Americans Elfrid Payton, Marcus Smart and Jarnell Stokes have all reached the NBA as has Canadian Tyler Ennis.

They will likely be joined by Americans Justise Winslow - Okafor's teammate at Duke - and Montrezl Harrell as well as Canadian Trey Lyles, who reached the NCAA Final Four with the University of Kentucky.

Australian Jonah Bolden is considered a high level prospect even though he did not play this past season with UCLA due to eligibility issues.

China's Zhou Qi and Sajjad Mashayekhi of Iran both played at the 2014 FIBA Asia Cup while Argentineans Gabriel Deck and Juan Vaulet both are expected to reach the senior national team soon.

Lithuania, who finished third behind the USA and Serbia in Prague in 2013, also had two players who have made big strides. Tomas Dimsa played at the 2014 Nike Hoop Summit and appeared in nine Euroleague games for Zalgiris Kaunas while Marius Grigonis averaged 8.0 points and 3.3 rebounds while hitting 43.5 percent of his three-point attempts at Spanish top flight club La Bruixa d’Or Manresa.

With guys like Winslow, Bolden, Vaulet all eligible to play at the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship, this summer already has plenty of promise talent-wise - though the 2013 edition set the bar pretty high.

FIBA