2020 Olympics New tournament format. Predictions. General talk

[Chuck Diesel]

Think 12 of the top American Euroleaguers (unnaturalized by other countries) could still compete for gold in Tokyo.

Brown/Henry
Loyd/James
Higgins/Hilliard/Barron
Clyburn/Booker (if healthy)
Hines/Reynolds

Baldwin, Mickey, Peters and plenty of others on deck.

[Katastroika]

Think 12 of the top American Euroleaguers (unnaturalized by other countries) could still compete for gold in Tokyo.

Brown/Henry
Loyd/James
Higgins/Hilliard/Barron
Clyburn/Booker (if healthy)
Hines/Reynolds

Baldwin, Mickey, Peters and plenty of others on deck.

I think that this is a very good team but they wouldn't be the best team in the competition. I think that a more balanced non NBA Finals roster out of NBA playerse is the prefered option of coach Pop. USA had a nominally very solid team in China and looked horrible.

I think best would be a 2010 or 2014 like roster of young extremely talented players that are on the edge of getting superstars. The only one of this category in China was Donovan Mitchell (besides Tatum who had health issues).

[ChuckDiesel2]

I think that this is a very good team but they wouldn't be the best team in the competition. I think that a more balanced non NBA Finals roster out of NBA playerse is the prefered option of coach Pop. USA had a nominally very solid team in China and looked horrible.

I think best would be a 2010 or 2014 like roster of young extremely talented players that are on the edge of getting superstars. The only one of this category in China was Donovan Mitchell (besides Tatum who had health issues).

Oh I agree, by and large you're going to have a better chance with NBA players than non NBA players. I was mostly trying to take a stab at fielding an all Euroleague Team USA with the best shot to compete for a gold, which I don't think is that far fetched. They might not be the favorites, but if Mike James and Jordan Loyd get hot from deep or Will Clyburn has a timely block or whatever, there's no reason they couldn't be in the mix in the medal rounds. Also, there's a case to be made that 12 Euroleague Americans would have more familiarity with one another than last year's China failure due to the comparatively fewer teams in the league and many of them having been teammates, not to mention their familiarity with the rules, refs and competition.

A repeat of 2010 and 2014 would be ideal, but there were generational talents on those teams. As you said, that wasn't the case in 2019. For me there's a clear line of demarcation where if dudes start catching "dropout fever" again next summer and USA basketball is down to their fifth or sixth options, I think I'd rather roll with Pierra Henry and Othello Hunter than the Colin Sextons and Mitchell Robinsons of the world.

By the way, I was locked out of my account for some reason, hence the new username.

[ChuckDiesel2]

If USA Basketball can put out any (positionally distributed) 12 of the following 35 players, they should be in really good shape to win gold. After that it starts getting dicey.

PGs
Lillard
Curry
Paul
Morant
Lowry
Irving
VanVleet
Holiday
Young
Brogdon

2’s
Harden
Booker
Beal
Mitchell
LaVine
Westbrook

Wings
Leonard
Butler
Tatum
George
Ingram
Middleton
J. Brown
Covington
Mikal Bridges

Bigs
James
Davis
Durant
Adebayo
Aldridge
Jaren Jackson Jr.
Zion
Griffin
Love
Turner

[Katastroika]

Yeah, that is a good list. But it depends who of them is coming. It's a difference if James and Davis show up or Turner and Love. Same with Middleton and Brown or Leonard and Tatum. Olympic Gold is very important to Team USA, I am 100% sure there will be a well balanced great team.

[Straight forward]

On other hand, the game time for those who will be following games lives from Europe... 6 AM or sometimes even 4 AM...it's a torture...

[Mindozas]

On other hand, the game time for those who will be following games lives from Europe... 6 AM or sometimes even 4 AM...it's a torture...

I moved your post to this thread as I think you mean Tokyo Olympics

Overall I agree, times sucks. I remember 2006 World Champ in Japan, there hardly were games at such early time or the same Beijing 2008. You could watch most of the games in the morning or at midday with very few exceptions. Even in Sydney 2000 with even bigger time differences, such late night games were only bronze one and probably opener vs Italy

[mojo13]

Noticed the other day that the Olympics announced all games will be played without foreign spectators.
Not sure if anyone hear was planning to attend, but that won't happen now.

Hurts some of the countries that travel well or are in closer proximity to Japan as their fans won't be there.

[Straight forward]

4 FIBA writers give early prediction. Kaunas qualification tournament now happens to be most waited and hardest to predict tournament. All 4 fellows agrees that Canada, Brazil and Serbia are clear favorites to snatch the tickets, while Lithuania and Slovenia each share 2 votes.

Not sure if P. Mills still at the point to be best scorer of Olympics, it's on Bogdanovic or Fournier, IMO.

As for medalists...to me it's USA gold, CANADA silver (some peppers here!) and SERBIA (shouldn't choke 2 times in a raw)

http://www.fiba.basketball/olympics/men/2020/news/way-too-early-predictions-for-the-olympics-who-will-qualify-and-who-will-impress-in-tokyo

[Katastroika]

4 FIBA writers give early prediction. Kaunas qualification tournament now happens to be most waited and hardest to predict tournament. All 4 fellows agrees that Canada, Brazil and Serbia are clear favorites to snatch the tickets, while Lithuania and Slovenia each share 2 votes.

Not sure if P. Mills still at the point to be best scorer of Olympics, it's on Bogdanovic or Fournier, IMO.

As for medalists...to me it's USA gold, CANADA silver (some peppers here!) and SERBIA (shouldn't choke 2 times in a raw)

http://www.fiba.basketball/olympics/...press-in-tokyo

How the fuck Brazil is favourite in Croatia?! Against Germany and Croatia? I don't see that they are any stronger than those two mentioned especially in Croatia.

[Straight forward]

How the fuck Brazil is favourite in Croatia?! Against Germany and Croatia? I don't see that they are any stronger than those two mentioned especially in Croatia.

Good point though.

[Mindozas]

How the fuck Brazil is favourite in Croatia?! Against Germany and Croatia? I don't see that they are any stronger than those two mentioned especially in Croatia.

It's FIBA experts I remember original edition of this poll, then two of them had blooper with both Slovenia and Lithuania qualify or smth like that After that they changed it, I mean guys didn't even know the system

[Toruko]

Calm down guys. Its not even clear that the Olympic games will take place. The groups are a bit weird though. Germanys group and Lithuanias group are way too weak and the other two are too strong imo.

[mojo13]

Yeah Brazil? No, thank you. They have become a fairly aged and decrepit team the last 4 years. I don't see them coming out of that Qualifier at all.


And this guy is a bit of an idiot:

Jeff Taylor: The gloves are coming off! Canada will come out of the Olympic wilderness. Why is this bold, you ask? Because Canada's men are really the great underachievers in international basketball the past two decades. They have all things "under" when it's come to the big moments. They have underwhelmed, underperformed, underachieved while often times being understaffed (i.e, some players haven't shown up for duty). So yes, this is a bold prediction. They'll finally get it right in 2021, with coach Nick Nurse, and beat Greece in the Final to reach Tokyo.


The great underachievers in international basketball the past two decades? WTF is this guy talking about?

The only time I consider we underachieved it is the 2015 FIBA Americas when we were rolling over everyone with very young NBA players - many who turned out to not be too good (Anthony Bennett, Nik Stauskas, and even Andrew Wiggins) - and then got caught by Venezuela.

Other than that I don't think we have ever assembled a team that underachieved. They were just not very good teams...with very little talent. And it is not until the last 5 or 6 years we even had the talent to assemble a decent team. Damn...this guy should really have looked into Canada's talent pool post the Steve Nash era (2000ish) to 2015.

[Katastroika]

Roster of the Frenchmen came out. Straight Forward will diss me as huge fan of French school but I am really not that impressed. This team is position-wise really good and formidably chosen but lacks creativity except De Colo and somehow less physical than previous French rosters. Will be interesting to seeing them in Japan, though. I have huge respect of their talent, nontheless.

Can't wait to see Spanish roster as World Champion and best European team.