Olympics Basketball

[FfldCntyFan]

You don't understand the tournament then.

In no order who have great players.

1. USA
2. Germany (F Wagner, M. Wagner, Schroder)
3. Spain (littered with terrific euro players who are proven but older like R Fernandez. Have Juanacho and Wily Hernangomez)
4. France (Goebert, Wembanyama, a ton of talent)
5. Serbia (Jokic)
6. Greece (Giannis )
7. Australia (Ingles, Jock Landale, Giddey, Patty Mills) -- cut an NBA player (Thybulle) from the team.
8. Canada (SGA, Jamal Murray, RJ Barett, Dort,)

If I had to pick?

USA - Gold
Canada - Silver
Australia - Bronze
France - Shutout

But we'll see.

The bottom 4 who should struggle, but who knows
Puerto Rico (Jose Alvarado, Tremont Waters!)
Brazil
Japan
South Sudan
Those top eight teams all have multiple nba guys.

The USA should win, but its going to take a great game from them to beat some of these teams. Jokic can dominate a basketball game any time he steps on the floor, as can Giannis.

Yes, the rest of the world has made up quite a bit of ground and yes, some of the top players in the world are from other countries but fielding an actual team requires quite a few pieces.

If you were to take the fifth, sixth and seventh best players from any other country, how deep in US players would you need to go to reach similar talent? 35? 45? 50?

Where we should have a massive advantage is in the quality of players three or four through the end of the bench. What we've been lacking in tournaments where we haven't done well is play as a team and bring the overall commitment necessary to win a competitive tournament.

I personally believe that if we put the teams together correctly (and the players were willing to comply with what would be necessary) we could field five or six full squads that would be at worst equally talented to any other country's team.

 

[aceboon]

What needs to happen is they need to start going back to the original goal after the Larry Brown 2004 disaster of securing multi-year commitments so guys are around and playing with each other for both the World Cup and Olympics. Not sure why they strayed from that model but that would be the best way for continuity instead of throwing guys together for a few weeks for both tournaments and it would also ensure that they wouldn't be getting embarrassed at the World Cup with the C team. I originally started watching Germany at the 2022 EuroCup because Giffey was playing and had a decent role off the bench and the same core of that team has been together for the 22 EuroCup, 23 World Cup, and now the 24 Olympics. They've got NBA players and guys that have been used to playing with each other for years and multiple tournament cycles.

 

[Dogdeacon]

You don't understand the tournament then.

In no order who have great players.

1. USA
2. Germany (F Wagner, M. Wagner, Schroder)
3. Spain (littered with terrific euro players who are proven but older like R Fernandez. Have Juanacho and Wily Hernangomez)
4. France (Goebert, Wembanyama, a ton of talent)
5. Serbia (Jokic)
6. Greece (Giannis )
7. Australia (Ingles, Jock Landale, Giddey, Patty Mills) -- cut an NBA player (Thybulle) from the team.
8. Canada (SGA, Jamal Murray, RJ Barett, Dort,)

If I had to pick?

USA - Gold
Canada - Silver
Australia - Bronze
France - Shutout

But we'll see.

The bottom 4 who should struggle, but who knows
Puerto Rico (Jose Alvarado, Tremont Waters!)
Brazil
Japan
South Sudan
Those top eight teams all have multiple nba guys.

The USA should win, but its going to take a great game from them to beat some of these teams. Jokic can dominate a basketball game any time he steps on the floor, as can Giannis.

I'm a basketball fan posting on a niche basketball website, so of course I follow Olympic hoops. That's how I knew the best player for Deutschland was a Wagner, who is not even an all-NBA talent - so you artfully avoided the question and listed all of the NBA players in the tourney.

It is hyperbole, but this might be the most competitive international basketball tournament ever, however we will see. Yet in terms of highly competitive basketball its proven a notch below even by your way of substantiating the quality. Your talent proof is to list NBA players. However, the Wagners and Schroeder as your leads would be underdogs in an NBA playoff series. Different rules of course and the international squads are experienced playing together, but very likely teams 2-7 on the list would struggle to get out of the first round in an NBA playoff series.

To test international vs NBA it could be cool if they invite a few internationals to the NBA Cup every year to play that out. That's more CRAZY talk I suppose that maybe should be qualified as a theoretical construct even on a superfluous college hoop fan message board.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

I saw a crazy stat today: the ‘92 dream team played against 9 NBA players. The ‘24 team will play against 61. That doesn’t even sound possible but I saw it on the internet so it must be true.

 

[Bboy Lace]

I saw a crazy stat today: the ‘92 dream team played against 9 NBA players. The ‘24 team will play against 61. That doesn’t even sound possible but I saw it on the internet so it must be true.

Nice fun fact.

 

[Bboy Lace]

Team USA is a -12.5 favorite over Serbia on Sunday.

 

[IndyLives]

USA can win gold with their B-Team. No one is going to beat a team with Tatum, Curry and LeBron.

 

[olehead]

I saw a crazy stat today: the ‘92 dream team played against 9 NBA players. The ‘24 team will play against 61. That doesn’t even sound possible but I saw it on the internet so it must be true.

But grassroots this, aau that. That's over 20% of the league.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Watching Germany/Japan hoops at the moment. Hoping Germany pulls away so Gif gets some burn.

 

[Scoe]

lol Geno most certainly did have input on who was selected, the party line that he didn't was jut a cover to try to protect him from blowback from who got snubbed. didn't work anyway as we saw with the Candace Parker debacle when she wasn't selected.

We’ll never know the real story but Geno and Candace Parker have never gotten along she does come across as a selfish player, so perhaps he saw that in the practices. Tamika Catchings made the team and she was at the tail end of her career.

 

[gsmooth]

Brazil has been hanging tough vs home court France. However, Brazil's live ball turnovers have been killing them and France has built a 9 pt lead late in 3rd qtr. Interesting seeing a big-to-big pick and roll with Wemby and Gobert.

 

[CL82]

I saw a crazy stat today: the ‘92 dream team played against 9 NBA players. The ‘24 team will play against 61. That doesn’t even sound possible but I saw it on the internet so it must be true.

61 on 5 seems unfair.

 

[aceboon]

Canada vs Greece today, should be a good one

 

[gsmooth]

Canada vs Greece today, should be a good one

Canada is playing really well. They got a lot of swagger. Only Giannis doing anything for Greece at the moment.

 

[aceboon]

Canada is playing really well. They got a lot of swagger. Only Giannis doing anything for Greece at the moment.

Greece national basketball team talent level has slipped alot over the last 15 years imo, Giannis is doing alot of heavy lifting for them. Pretty much the inverse for Canada which has a ton of high level NBA dudes playing for them and that doesn't even include Wiggins and Edey would be a load in this FIBA setting.

 

[aceboon]

We’ll never know the real story but Geno and Candace Parker have never gotten along she does come across as a selfish player, so perhaps he saw that in the practices. Tamika Catchings made the team and she was at the tail end of her career.

Nobody has ever called Parker selfish, pure silliness

 

[Scoe]

Nobody has ever called Parker selfish, pure silliness

You weren’t there in their practices so you don’t know, like I said no one knows the real reason so we’re left with speculation. Key words I said were maybe she came across as selfish that’s different than saying she’s selfish. Having a selfish moment which we have all had doesn’t make a person selfish.

 

[aceboon]

Canada trying to give this one away to Greece but then SGA with a great move

 

[aceboon]

 

[aceboon]

You weren’t there in their practices so you don’t know, like I said no one knows the real reason so we’re left with speculation. Key words I said were maybe she came across as selfish that’s different than saying she’s selfish. Having a selfish moment which we have all had doesn’t make a person selfish.

The former two time Olympian decided to "come across as selfish" in her potential 3rd go around, yea ok. She got left off the team for a rookie Breanna Stewart, and guess who just happened to be Stewie's college coach. Not hard to see what happened there.

 

[Scoe]

The former two time Olympian decided to "come across as selfish" in her potential 3rd go around, yea ok. She got left off the team for a rookie Breanna Stewart, and guess who just happened to be Stewie's college coach. Not hard to see what happened there.

Don’t think it’s a stretch to say she might have outplayed Parker in practices. 2016 Stewie in college was equivalent to 2007 Lebron( 4th year in the NBA) so you think she was undeserving?

Someone is always going to be left off the Olympic team ie Isiah Thomas and Jalen Brown. You can spin the conspiracies all you want to none of us know the real reasons.

 

[aceboon]

Forgot you dudes can't be objective, I'm not discussing it anymore

 

[gsmooth]

Don’t think it’s a stretch to say she might have outplayed Parker in practices. 2016 Stewie in college was equivalent to 2007 Lebron( 4th year in the NBA) so you think she was undeserving?

Someone is always going to be left off the Olympic team ie Isiah Thomas and Jalen Brown. You can spin the conspiracies all you want to none of us know the real reasons.

I can't speak to the whole debate you are having about Breanna Stewart and Candace Parker, but with Isiah Thomas there was no mystery. He was left off because Jordan didn't want him there and Magic didn't either. Isiah, even though he was a legendary player, he made some enemies.

 

[brihman]

Yea good luck sending college kids against teams like Germany and France stacked with NBA pros, it ain't the 70s anymore

Should of added Coop to the roster

 

[upstater]

Greece national basketball team talent level has slipped alot over the last 15 years imo, Giannis is doing alot of heavy lifting for them. Pretty much the inverse for Canada which has a ton of high level NBA dudes playing for them and that doesn't even include Wiggins and Edey would be a load in this FIBA setting.

The Greek players don't play well with Giannis' style. They did really well against Slovenia and others to qualify, without Giannis playing. Half the team plays for Panathinaikos which just won the European Championship, including Giannis's brother Kostas. So--as far as Int'l bball goes, they have plenty of talent, but they've never meshed with Giannis, and likely never will.