The International Basketball Federation (FIBA, the acronym from its French name) calculates the world rankings of all of its basketball teams.

Only FIBA tournaments are used in calculations for the tournaments; other tournaments, such as regional championships, invitationals, and friendlies are not included.

Each FIBA event has a weight, partly based on the strength of the various national teams participating:

As opposed to football (soccer) tournaments, teams still have to go through a series of consolation and classification rounds even if they've been eliminated from title contention, so that a complete ranking of the teams will be possible.

The calculations are done after the tournaments stated above in a group of two Olympic cycles (8 years). The oldest tournament outside the 8-year period is discarded and replaced with the newest competition.

A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either 'ranked higher than', 'ranked lower than' or 'ranked equal to' the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of objects. It is not necessarily a total order of objects because two different objects can have the same ranking. The rankings themselves are totally ordered. For example, materials are totally preordered by hardness, while degrees of hardness are totally ordered.

By reducing detailed measures to a sequence of ordinal numbers, rankings make it possible to evaluate complex information according to certain criteria. Thus, for example, an Internet search engine may rank the pages it finds according to an estimation of their relevance, making it possible for the user quickly to select the pages they are likely to want to see.

Analysis of data obtained by ranking commonly requires non-parametric statistics.

It is not always possible to assign rankings uniquely. For example, in a race or competition two (or more) entrants might tie for a place in the ranking. When computing an ordinal measurement, two (or more) of the quantities being ranked might measure equal. In these cases, one of the strategies shown below for assigning the rankings may be adopted.

William John Donovan, Jr. (born May 30, 1965) is an American college basketball coach and a former college and professional basketball player. Donovan is the head coach of the Florida Gators men's basketball team of the University of Florida. He is best known for leading the Florida Gators to two consecutive National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships.

Donovan has coached the Gators in three NCAA championship game appearances in 2000, 2006 and 2007. The Gators lost to the Michigan State Spartans in the 2000 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball final. The Gators won the national championship in 2006 with a 73–57 win over UCLA and again in 2007 with an 84–75 win over the Ohio State Buckeyes, making Donovan the first coach since Mike Krzyzewski to win back-to-back NCAA titles. He is one of only four men (Dean Smith, Joe B. Hall and Bobby Knight being the others) to appear in the NCAA Final Four as a player and win the NCAA national championship as a coach.

After a brief stint as head coach of the Orlando Magic that lasted only five days, Donovan re-signed with the Gators on June 7, 2007. The deal made him the highest-paid head coach in college basketball at $3.5 million per year.

Kevin Wayne Durant (born September 29, 1988) is an American professional basketball forward with the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A 6'9" small forward, Durant was the consensus 2007 National College Player of the Year and the 2006–2007 Big 12 Player of the Year, amongst other awards. After a standout freshman season at the University of Texas, Durant opted to enter the NBA Draft, where he was selected second overall by the Seattle SuperSonics. There he went on to win the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after his debut season. In 2007, Durant signed an endorsement contract with Nike. In the 2009–10 season Durant led the NBA in scoring and became the youngest player ever to win the NBA scoring title. He would later be named to the 2010 All NBA First Team.

Kevin Wesley Love (born September 7, 1988) is an American professional basketball player for the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The two-time All-Star is one of the top rebounders in the NBA, and he holds the longest streak for consecutive games recording double figures in points and rebounds since the merger between the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the NBA. The Associated Press called Love the new face of the Timberwolves franchise. He is also known for his outlet passing, which led to comparisons to Wes Unseld.

A top ranked prospect out of Lake Oswego High School in Oregon, Love played one season of college basketball for the UCLA Bruins and led the team to a Final Four appearance in the 2008 NCAA Tournament. Love was named the Pac-10 Conference Player of the Year and consensus First Team All-American following the season. Love chose not to complete his three remaining years of college eligibility and entered the 2008 NBA Draft. He was taken fifth overall by the Memphis Grizzlies, and was traded to the Timberwolves on draft night for the third overall selection, O. J. Mayo, in an eight-player deal. Love was a member of the gold medal-winning United States men's national basketball team at the 2010 FIBA World Championship.