"I guarantee you that by 2028, it’s going to be stiffer for the Americans to say that we’re the best country in the world at basketball," Allen told the Indian Express at an NBA Academy clinic in Mumbai.

"If you look at the leagues in Europe, there are a lot of kids coming up that are going to be way better than American players, which is a great thing for the sport."

At the start of the current season, no fewer than 120 players from 40 different countries formed part of team rosters on the opening night of competition.

"Look at the top 10 best players in the league, around 75 percent are not born in the USA, that speaks volumes of how international the game has become," Allen added.

Cameroonian Joel Embiid, a center with the Philadelphia 76ers, won the NBA Regular Season Most Valuable Player award from Denver Nuggets' Serbian center Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee Bucks power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, a Greek Nigerian.

"It also tells kids in America that you have got to work on your skills because players around the world are starting to play good basketball, that is reflected in world competitions like the Olympics," he continued. 

Basketball was included on the Olympic programme for the first time in 1936, but it was not until the highly controversial defeat to the Soviet Union in the 1972 Olympic final in Munich that the Americans were beaten.

The boycott of the Moscow Olympics meant that Yugoslavia won gold at Moscow 1980 without American opposition.

Since that time, the American men's team have only failed to win at the Seoul Olympics of 1988 when they lost to the Soviet Union in the semi final.

Then at Athens 2004, they were beaten by eventual champions Argentina in the semi finals.

At the Tokyo Olympics, France beat the United States 83-76 in the opening pool match but the Americans still reached the final and avenged their earlier loss with an 87-82 victory.

In women’s basketball, the United States have won every Olympic gold medal since 1984.