2016 Olympic Power Rankings

[usagre]

He didn't have a bad year in the Nba. He was a rotation player who had a difficult time on the defensive end. But all in all I think he was fine considering the adjustment. And obviously it's hard to compare his Euroleague season the previous year to his rookie nba season because the competition is night and day.

[Picek]

losing last years (Fenerbahce) Bjelica is a loss.
losing Bjelica who played his last game in april, who didn't practice 'cause of injury and who had a bad first season in NBA?
even if he was cleared to play no one can know which Bjelica would show up and how affected with injury he would be?
the only mistake Đorđević made was that he waited too long, he should have known this was a possibility.

[CoachZ]

More injuries could happen, so things could change. We are weaker now, I wouldn't say so much that we cannot still have a good result, but we will have to play at 100% every single game. Here is how I would rank the teams.

Tier 1
USA - Bar None

Tier 2a
Spain
France

Tier 2b
Serbia
Lithuania

Tier 3
Croatia
Argentina
Australia
Brazil

Tier 4
Nigeria

Tier 5
Venezuela
China

[vuxsa]

Well many put Serbia in tier 2 along with Spain, France (and maybe) Lithuania, I guess we're now for tier 3.

[Hepcat]

If US team still had NBA coach leading them, their chances of falling short would increase dramatically

It's not coaching. When the USA sends it's A team or best possible roster the coach is completely irrelevant. They will win the tournament 99% of the time. It's all about the players.

I agree with Madmax. It's no accident that the USA team reestablished its dominance once Coach K took over. A key piece of evidence here is that in any game where Coach K has to make half-time adjustments, Team USA has come out playing much better in the second half.

[usagre]

Idk if they are worse(because we haven't seen them play) they are certainly less experienced but that's not the worst thing. Barnes is the only player on this team to not be all NBA something. 2012 that was Iggy(Who was traded in the middle of the tournament) and Davis(who had not played an NBA game yet). Technically Harden too but I'd count 6th man of the year.

True but I am saying on paper going into the tournaments. 2008 and 2012 I think we're clearly better on paper. Those teams had the best available players of their time like a Lebron, Durant, Kobe, Chris Paul ect. This year they are missing guys like Curry, James, Leonard, Westbrook, and others who if available would supplant players on the team. You can't really say that for the most part about the 2008 and 2012 teams. And I don't really focus on the bottom 3 of the rosters because they never play any significant role in the meaningful knockout games. So those guys are pretty much irrelevant unless you focus on the importance of padding the scores late in games.

[Steadysoul]

In a one game scenario I agree you definitely never know. Spain was extremely competitive in those two finals but I wouldn't say they almost beat USA. In 2012 Spain never got closer than within 6 points in the final 6 minutes. The preliminary round game against Lithuania was actually closer with Lithuania trailing by only 1 point with 4 minutes left. The 2008 final was closer than 2012 final but Spain never made it a one possession game late. They were within 4 points with 2 minutes left when the Wade hit a 3 and the USA won going away.
This edition of team USA is weaker than both the 2008 and 2012 teams but I would also say that there are no potential opponents as strong as 2008 and 2012 Spain either.

Idk if they are worse(because we haven't seen them play) they are certainly less experienced but that's not the worst thing. Barnes is the only player on this team to not be all NBA something. 2012 that was Iggy(Who was traded in the middle of the tournament) and Davis(who had not played an NBA game yet). Technically Harden too but I'd count 6th man of the year.

[usagre]

Still, Spain did come close to beating USA twice during the last two Olympics and you never really know.

Teams with an excellent set of top level guards can make it very hard for the US to beat them.

I think this years USA team can be beaten. At least some teams can make their life miserable.

In a one game scenario I agree you definitely never know. Spain was extremely competitive in those two finals but I wouldn't say they almost beat USA. In 2012 Spain never got closer than within 6 points in the final 6 minutes. The preliminary round game against Lithuania was actually closer with Lithuania trailing by only 1 point with 4 minutes left. The 2008 final was closer than 2012 final but Spain never made it a one possession game late. They were within 4 points with 2 minutes left when the Wade hit a 3 and the USA won going away.
This edition of team USA is weaker than both the 2008 and 2012 teams but I would also say that there are no potential opponents as strong as 2008 and 2012 Spain either.

[Victorious]

It's not coaching. When the USA sends it's A team or best possible roster the coach is completely irrelevant. They will win the tournament 99% of the time. It's all about the players. I am glad you left out 2002 because that was a C roster.
Only Paul Pierce was an Nba top 20 player on that team. As for 2004 only Duncan and Iverson were top players with the remaining 6 rotation guys clearly also C quality players. The team was also poorly constructed with no outside shooting so the opponents clogged the paint and negated Duncan and Iverson. 2006 was a unique situation in which the team did consist of Wade, Anthony and James, but the point guard position was weak. A rookie Chris Paul backed up by Kirk Hinrich was C level. 2004 point guard play was also terrible with Marbury backed up by an out of position rookie Wade. But the loss to Greece was due to excellent backcourt play and perfect execution of their offense. Couple that with the USA taking Greece for granted as Argentina was the perceived main threat and to a lesser degree Spain entering that tournament.
So to me it's always been about the players you assemble.

Just to clarify what I mean by the A, B, C quality classifications.
A= top 8-9 rotation players
B= next 8-9 rotation players
C= 3rd best possible collection of 8 or 9 players.

Still, Spain did come close to beating USA twice during the last two Olympics and you never really know.

Teams with an excellent set of top level guards can make it very hard for the US to beat them.

I think this years USA team can be beaten. At least some teams can make their life miserable.

[unnamed]

I'm really curious how did you come up with these numbers when this team USA in this setup has never played this French team, and if they did I have no idea how is it possible to determine with a decimal precision exactly how much better one team is than the other. I'm sure you're making a lot of money from betting if you have this figured out.

I've used some stats from players performance in NBA and Euroleague(both regular season and playoffs). Of course when I put ULEB stats, some strength ratios will change, so this is not yet final strength before game 1. It will also change as tournament goes on, as I'll take input from tournament performances. The method I used proved to be good, I've even made a good prediction that Serbia would lose against Lithuania at previous Eurobasket or that Czech will beat Croatia.

[SashKX]

As he wrote - statistics. Of course, there's sayin': stats like bikinis - what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. If we were on betting forum - sure, in team sports it's most of the times useless or misleading, nowadays teams chances just too much to base smth on historical h2h results, but since we just just basketball forum, it's kinda fun to see some, discuss about it, no harm done

I have seen people make predictions based on historical match ups from 30 years ago, or bring up FIBA rankings, and things of that sort do count as statistics, so I'm wondering what statistics exactly is he talking about. I'm guessing it's probably individual player stats, but then again, what stats? Is it one of various performance indexes used, or just averaged points, rebounds and assists? I'm doing this for the fun too, just debating about predictions, in this case about one that kinda stands out.

[Mindozas]

I'm really curious how did you come up with these numbers when this team USA in this setup has never played this French team, and if they did I have no idea how is it possible to determine with a decimal precision exactly how much better one team is than the other. I'm sure you're making a lot of money from betting if you have this figured out.

As he wrote - statistics. Of course, there's sayin': stats like bikinis - what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. If we were on betting forum - sure, in team sports it's most of the times useless or misleading, nowadays teams changes just too much to base smth on historical h2h results, but since we just a basketball forum, it's kinda fun to see some, discuss about it, no harm done

[SashKX]

I agree. USA is nearly twice as better then 2nd best team in this group - France. Difference between Serbia and France is not big, excluding Ajinca. Difference between Serbia and Australia is larger then France and Serbia. I did some statistics and I gotten following strength ratio:

1, USA
2. France (1.89x weaker then USA)
3. Serbia (1.02x weaker then France)
4. Australia (1.19x weaker then Serbia)

I'm really curious how did you come up with these numbers when this team USA in this setup has never played this French team, and if they did I have no idea how is it possible to determine with a decimal precision exactly how much better one team is than the other. I'm sure you're making a lot of money from betting if you have this figured out.

[usagre]

on a same note, 2004 and 2006 US teams had players like Iverson, Duncan, Wade, Anthony and LBJ on their roster and still lost...I think the main difference here is the coaching change, not the players' selection. If US team still had NBA coach leading them, their chances of falling short would increase dramatically

It's not coaching. When the USA sends it's A team or best possible roster the coach is completely irrelevant. They will win the tournament 99% of the time. It's all about the players. I am glad you left out 2002 because that was a C roster.
Only Paul Pierce was an Nba top 20 player on that team. As for 2004 only Duncan and Iverson were top players with the remaining 6 rotation guys clearly also C quality players. The team was also poorly constructed with no outside shooting so the opponents clogged the paint and negated Duncan and Iverson. 2006 was a unique situation in which the team did consist of Wade, Anthony and James, but the point guard position was weak. A rookie Chris Paul backed up by Kirk Hinrich was C level. 2004 point guard play was also terrible with Marbury backed up by an out of position rookie Wade. But the loss to Greece was due to excellent backcourt play and perfect execution of their offense. Couple that with the USA taking Greece for granted as Argentina was the perceived main threat and to a lesser degree Spain entering that tournament.
So to me it's always been about the players you assemble.

Just to clarify what I mean by the A, B, C quality classifications.
A= top 8-9 rotation players
B= next 8-9 rotation players
C= 3rd best possible collection of 8 or 9 players.

[usagre]

Forget it man.Noone will stop USA's domination.Bad news for the rest of the wolrd but the times of USA sending teams led by Shawn Marion,Richard Jefferson or the corpse of Reggie Miller are long gone and arent coming back.The moment USA understood the importance of 3 point play it was game over for the rest of the world..Cant wait to see euro teams against a line up of Irving-Klay-George-Durant-Green..it's gonna be fun.

I agree that 5 man unit is the death lineup.
I think the keys to USA dominance are
- 3 point shot
- taking tournaments serious using set rotations
- and like you said sending better players.