Olympics: Basketball

[Captain Beefheart]

Because really it's the only competition I care about besides football.

USA haven't won an international competition since the 2000 Olympics and they get drawn in the group of death with China, Spain and Greece. Spain are the World Champs and have the same core as the past Olympics(Calderon, Navarro, Garbajosa, Gasol) with the additions of Gasol's brother, the next Pistol Pete(Ricky Rubio: 17 years old!) and a much mature Rudy Fernandez. Greece also has the same core of players that beat the US at the World Champs(Papaloukas, Spanoulis, Diamantidis).

USA sends the same team that qualified for the Olympics sans Chandler, Amare(their frontline is kinda weak sauce even with Howard, Bosh and Boozer). They probably have the best line of guards in the tourney, Kidd has never lost a game with the US and Paul/Deron are probably the best PG's in the NBA. Kobe is Kobe and Redd should be the spot up shooter they've always missed. Lebronze is always exposed as a fraud when playing outside of his comfort zone, Wade more of the same and Marshmellow is actually their most consistent player(his all-around offensive game actually suits the international game)

It would be nice if they were upset again but it will really take a lot to beat them. You never know. Spain, Greece and Argentina could beat them on a good day. Spain has cohesiveness, chemistry working for them and Greece is like the Detroit Pistons they turn the games into grindouts and those type of scenarios are difficult to deal with.

Ohhh and meet Ricky "Pistol Pete" Rubio:

[Mo]

Just got done watching the 08-Dream Team V Australia...hehehe proud we didn't get super smashed ;)

[Captain Beefheart]

It's hard to rate Australia since they play in Oceania but most of these players have been together since the Junior Champs(Under 20's), Bogut and Andersen are a nice interior combo for international basketball. I think they'll fight to get to the quarterfinals, it's an easier group because Argentina has really done down a notch, Russia is the Eurochamps but they're pretty unpredictable and you could say the same thing about Croatia. Both of them are second tier teams in a world context.

The blueprint to beat the USA is pretty clear, not turn the ball over, play good tight defense and score atleast 85-95 points if u wanna have a chance against them. They are a very tactically limited team(pretty much iso's to Kobe, Melo or Lebronze and pick and rolls). And don't even get me started on fundamentals, it's topical but they still haven't learned something as basic as when you get the ball you just can take two steps and put it on the floor, it's travelling. If the refs blow the whistle the right way they're going to get about 8-10 travelling calls per game.