The 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup qualification began in earnest at the 2011 Caribbean Championships, a qualifier to the 2012 Centrobasket, which was in itself a qualifier to the 2013 FIBA Americas Championship. The winners of the 2012 Olympic basketball tournament, the United States, qualified outright. The USA joined the host nation Spain, which was earlier elected to host the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup in July 2009.
Qualification would be via each of FIBA's zones, with each zone allocated at least two berths, with additional berths given according to the strengths of the teams within each zone. In this setup, FIBA Europe got six berths, FIBA Americas had 4, FIBA Africa and FIBA Asia, 3 teams each, and FIBA Oceania, 2 berths.[1]
The continental championships in each FIBA zone doubled as a qualifying tournament. The top teams in each tournament qualified to the Basketball World Cup.
In addition, after the continental championships were done, four more wild cards berths were awarded by FIBA to complete the 24-team tournament.[1]
This was the final set of qualification tournaments under this method. FIBA announced that the next edition of the World Cup would be held in 2019, the number of participating teams raised from 24 to 32, FIBA Asia and FIBA Oceania combined into one region for purposes of qualifying for the World Cup, and that qualifying will be done in a home and away format.[2]