Qualified teams
Turkey is automatic qualifier as the host country. The USA also received an automatic berth for winning the 2008 Olympic men's basketball tournament.
Eighteen other teams qualified through continental qualifying tournaments, and FIBA invited four more "wild card" teams to fill out the 24-team field. Each FIBA zone is allocated a certain amount of automatic berths based upon the strength of its zone: the weakest zone, Oceania, gets only two automatic berths each, while Europe gets six.
Certain peculiarities include:
- On the Oceanian championship, only two teams registered to compete, and with Oceania having two automatic berths, both were automatically qualified.
- Turkey, despite being qualified already, still played at the European championships. Had Turkey finished sixth or higher, the seventh-placed team would also have qualified.
- The USA did not send a team to the Americas championship because they had automatically qualified by winning the gold medal in the men's Olympic basketball tournament.
Qualifying tournaments:
| Qualifying tournament | Duration | Location | Berths | Teams qualified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Host | – |  Turkey |
1 | Turkey
|
| 2008 Olympic men's basketball tournament | August 10–24, 2008 |  China |
1 |  United States
|
| FIBA Africa Championship 2009 | August 4–14, 2009 |  Libya |
3 |  Angola Ivory Coast Tunisia
|
| FIBA Asia Championship 2009 | August 6–16, 2009 | China |
3 |  Iran China Jordan
|
| FIBA Oceania Championship 2009 | August 23–25, 2009 |  Australia New Zealand |
2 | New Zealand Australia
|
| FIBA Americas Championship 2009 | August 26-September 6, 2009 |  Puerto Rico |
4 |  Brazil Puerto Rico Argentina Canada
|
| EuroBasket 2009 | September 7–20, 2009 |  Poland |
6 |  Spain Serbia Greece Slovenia France Croatia
|
| Wild cards | December 12–13, 2009 | Turkey |
4 |  Russia Lebanon Lithuania Germany
|
The draw for the championship took place in Istanbul on December 15, 2009.
