The Olympics begin on Saturday and Team U.S.A. is assembled and ready to go. The roster is loaded, headlined by LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, this is the best team the United States have had since at least 2012. Beyond those three the team includes Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid, Anthony Edwards, Anthony Davis, Bam Adebayo, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Tyrese Haliburton and Devin Booker. The team is stacked and they went 5-0 in the warmup games, so will they come home with gold?
Ever since the Olympics began allowing pro players to play in 1992, the United States has won gold 7 out of the 8 Olympics, the 2004 team won bronze. This team should follow in those 7 that won gold due to the overwhelming talent that is on the team. In the 5 warmup games, or the showcase games as U.S.A. Basketball was calling them, the United States had their good moments and bad moments, so let’s dive into them.
There were a lot of good moments over the 5 games. First off, they found a way to win all 5 of the games, no matter how bad they looked at times. That is important because finding ways to win is the name of the game in this tournament because after the group stages, it is single elimination which means that if you cannot win close games late and win games that you do not deserve to win, you could be eliminated at the drop of a hat. They looked their best against Serbia, who had a really good team filled with NBA players, including 3-time MVP Nikola Jokic, as they blew the doors off of the Serbs 105-79. Stephen Curry nailed 6 three pointers in the game and the United States looked like they would be unbeatable that day. They played well against Australia but allowed a late run and the Canada game was good game of the United States as well. In the last 2 games they played in however, the U.S. did not look good. LeBron saved them late in both games, scoring 25 points in a 101-100 win against South Sudan and 20 points in a 92-88 win against Germany, both games the United States trailed late and needed The King to save them. These games are not reason to panic but they do cause some concern.
A big reason that the United States could lose in Paris is because the rest of the world is catching up. Teams like Canada, Germany, Serbia, France, Australia and others are littered with NBA talent up and down the roster, the rest of the world is catching up and they play in all of these world tournaments together. Germany, who just won the FIBA world cup last fall, is sending a very similar roster to what they sent then, meaning they know how to play off of one another. The United States does not have that same level of continuity because their best players do not play in that tournament or any tournament aside from the Olympics. They start working out together just a month before the games begin and it is a challenge to bring a team together that quickly.
The U.S.’s group is not all that strong so that is a benefit to them. It includes, Serbia, South Sudan and Puerto Rico. Although the United States almost just lost to South Sudan, you would assume that likely won’t happen again. Headlined by Wenyen Gabrial and JT Thor, South Sudan has a good team but not one that should be able to compete with the U.S. and Puerto Rico is headlined by Jose Alvarado and Tremont Waters, nothing that puts a ton of fear into you. Even if they lose to Serbia, which would shock me, they will still likely advance past the group stages into the knockout rounds. That is where things can get dicey, the knockout rounds are single elimination and if the United States do not bring their A game, they may very well lose. As I said, there are some really good teams they’ll be playing against so they’ll need to play well and play connected, including limiting turnovers which they have struggled with in the showcase games.
I do think the United States talent will win out in the end. When you have the assembly of players that they have, with former league MVPs and NBA champions up and down the roster, you usually win. I would even go as far to say if you gave me the choice of the United States against the field, I would take the U.S. There is just too much talent on the roster to bet against them and in the end, if they did not come home with the gold medal, I would be stunned.
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