He "should be playing for Italy" only in the sense that the USA only kinda needs him (he may or may not be on an A-team for the Olympics), whereas he'd make a huge difference for Italy, who pretty clearly only had one competitive player out there yesterday (Fontecchio). Italy might be a Banchero away from really making some noise on the global scene. So it'd be good for the international game if he were playing for Italy, he'd be their star. Xander and I talked about this on page 1 of this thread.
You only get one naturalized player on the roster for a given tournament, per FIBA rules. So if the other options Italy is considering are Donte DiVincenzo, Alex Caruso, Ryan Arcidiacono, and maybe Reggie Jackson (if he hasn't renounced), I have to say I'd pick Banchero first on that list every day of the week. Actually Jackson was born in Italy so he has either been a citizen since birth (and wouldn't take the naturalized slot), or can't get naturalized under Italian law, so either way scratch him as an option.
But in general I just wish the talent pool were spread around a bit more to make more fans in more countries excited about their prospects. Like, yeah, the USA can now field Joel Embiid if healthy, but wouldn't it be better if he were promoting the game in Cameroon and wearing their jersey? He's an American only because he was able to come here and have a career, if that's the standard then we could probably pick almost any NBA player we wanted because they'll all be eligible to naturalize (even if Doncic, Giannis, Jokic etc never would turn their backs on their country of birth). So I get where people are coming from about "it's kinda a shame Banchero picked the US", if your goal is just around the global depth of the game of basketball.
