Boucher, who played alongside Marks and Cameron when the Tall Blacks finished fourth in the 2002 world championship, is now part of the coaching staff headed by Nenad Vucinic which is preparing for this year's championship in Turkey.

The Tall Blacks, ranked 13th in the world, today confirmed a tough build-up in August which includes matches against Iran, Turkey, Serbia, Slovenia Russia, Croatia and Jordan prior to the main event.

Yet to be confirmed is the 12-strong squad, which will be named after trials in Auckland in late July.

The Tall Blacks which beat Australia last year was mainly a young one but Boucher says it would be helpful to have experienced players like Marks and Cameron in the team.

"To be successful you have to have that experience and right now this Tall Black team that played Australia last year, there wasn't a lot of experience there but they showed they were good enough to beat a team like Australia.

"There's no reason if that same team went to the world champs why they can't be successful, but it would be a big help if you had guys like Pero Cameron and Sean Marks available."

Marks, who plays in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States for the New Orleans Hornets, retired from international basketball some years ago but Boucher and Vucinic are keen to have him back.

"He knows that we clearly want him," Boucher said.

"He's obviously trying to make it back to the NBA, and he's got a shoulder injury at the moment so he's just trying to take care of his body right now and he'll assess things once his body feels like it's right.

"If his body's right and all the suns align, hopefully he'll make a decision that benefits us."

Boucher said the experience of such players would be particularly helpful to younger players who will be going into the Tall Blacks in August straight after playing in New Zealand's National Basketball League (NBL).

"You probably couldn't get a bigger stepping stone," he said.

"The guys we're playing against in the world championship are playing in the NBA or the top European leagues and we're coming from little old New Zealand -- not writing off the New Zealand league because it's very strong this year, but it's definitely not the level of competition that we're going to be coming up against.

It's going to be a huge step up, and that's again why those experienced players are so crucial because they know how big the step is."

One thing that will help the players with that step will be the build-up in Europe. All their opponents will compete at the 24-team world championship and all bar Jordan are ranked between five and 21.

Basketball New Zealand chief executive Tim Hamilton confirmed they would play Iran, Turkey and Serbia in Turkey on August 6-8 before heading to Slovenia to play the hosts, Russia and Serbia on August 13-15.

They next head to Croatia for a tournament involving Croatia, Russia and Jordan on August 20-22 before returning for Turkey for the start of the world championship on August 28 against Lithuania.

"I look at this itinerary and it's very similar to what we did in 2002," said Boucher.

"One thing Tab Baldwin made sure of in 2002 was that we got a good hard schedule and it's exactly what we've got here."

New Zealand's group in the world championships include Spain (ranked three in the world), Lithuania (six), France (15), Canada (19) and Lebanon (24).