Las Vegas • The Jazz’s Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors are two of the best basketball players in the world, part of an elite group of professionals who have beaten astronomical odds to make it to the NBA and get selected to play on the team that is helping prepare Team USA for the London Olympics.

Yet even they have been a little awestruck by everything here.

While Hayward acknowledged that it’s hard to concentrate on answering questions while superstar Blake Griffin is over there putting on a spectacular post-practice dunking demonstration, Favors said he has had his eyes opened in just a few days of practice against the Olympians at UNLV’s Mendenhall Center.

“We’re basically like a junior-varsity team, compared to them,” he said. “It’s all about the reality check. You think you’re good, until you go up against them. Then you’re like, ‘Man, I got stuff I need to work on.’”

And that’s a former No. 3 draft pick talking.

But that’s the whole point.

Players on USA Basketball’s so-called “Select Team” are part of a pool of prospects for future Olympics.

So while guys like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant are busy preparing to chase gold in London, Hayward and Favors and the other 11 players on the Select Team are working to improve and hoping they can be part of the national team for the 2014 World Championships in Spain, the 2016 Rio Olympics in Brazil, and perhaps beyond.

“I hope so,” Favors said. “That’s what everybody is working for, as a basketball player. Everyone hopes for the Olympics. I hope so.”

The Jazz have had their share of Olympians in the past — most notably, of course, John Stockton and Karl Malone, who won gold as part of the original “Dream Team” at the 1992 Barcelona Games and again at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

But guards Deron Williams and Carlos Arroyo both played at the Olympics as members of the Jazz, as well, along with forwards Carlos Boozer, Andrei Kirilenko and Jose Ortiz (who was Jazz property but had not yet joined the team).

In fact, at least one Jazz player has played in every Olympics since 1988, a streak that will end in London.