BRA - Squad announced for Japan-bound Brazilians

RIO DE JANEIRO (FIBA World Championship) - The Brazilian national team fly to China on Friday for the last warm-up stage ahead of the FIBA World Championship in Japan and as expected, Nene and Rafael 'Baby' Araujo are not in the group.

Nene missed all of last season with a knee injury and announced earlier this summer he would not play so his exclusion is no surprise.

'Baby' Araujo has preferred to dedicate himself fully to his new team, the Utah Jazz, ahead of the new NBA season.

Scoring machine Marcelinho Machado, Leandrinho Barbosa, Tiago Splitter and Anderson Varejao are in coach Aluisio 'Lula' Ferreira's team.

In China, Brazil will play a friendly against the United States on Tuesday and then take part in the  Borislav Stankovic Cup, an event from August 10-15 in which Germany, Australia, China, France and Greece are also involved.

Brazil won last year's FIBA Americas Championship. In Japan, they are in Group C - widely regarded as the toughest of the four - along with Australia, Greece, Lithuania, Qatar and Turkey.

Brazil squad : Marcelinho Machado (Zalgiris Kaunas), Welington dos Santos 'Nezinho' (Ribeirao Preto), Murilo Becker (Franca), Estevam Ferreira Jr (Uberlandia), Leandro Barbosa 'Leandrinho' (Phoenix Suns), Marcelinho Huertas (Joventut Badalona), Alex Garcia (Ribeirao Preto), Anderson Varejao (Cleveland Cavaliers), Guilherme Giovannoni (Bologna), Caio Torres (Rayet Guadajara), Andre Bambu (Parmesa Castellon), Tiago Splitter (Tau Ceramica).

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