I’d go with Spo and Juwan as an assistant. Juwan is way too green to be coaching the Olympic team imo. And has zero international experience from what I understand.
If they went college Jay Wright or Mark Few would probably be the choice
I’d go with Spo and Juwan as an assistant. Juwan is way too green to be coaching the Olympic team imo. And has zero international experience from what I understand.
If they went college Jay Wright or Mark Few would probably be the choice
Isaac? He’s injured way too often and hasn’t shown a ton when healthy. I just can’t project him to be successful at this point. Might as well go with Michael Porter Jr. if you want a lanky wing. At least he hits the J. A 3 and D guy like Mikal Bridges might be a better option than both. I could see him being an all-star in 3 years.
Beyond that, I’d still like to see some size. I know he was born elsewhere but couldn’t Ayton be our guy? I suppose it depends on if he’d want to play for the Bahamas (wouldl they even qualify for the Olympics?) but he moved to the states when he was 14 or 15. One more sniper would be good too. Duncan Robinson, come on down!
VW…Von Wafer?
Draymond impacts the game that aren’t seen in the box score. He’s one of the more valuable player in the league for this reason. One of the smartest player I’ve seen
France is missing a PG and prime Tony Parker could’ve really helped this squad. There’s Killian Hayes and Theo Maldeon coming up for '24. France is USA’s biggest threat for the gold medal and it’s in Paris.
I wonder if Moussa (or Sekou) will be ready by then?
It’s definitely a projection. Part of the fun of doing this 3 years out. But I’m high on Isaac. Just a game changing defensive player and that’d be his role. Could easily play 3-5 and defend every spot. Wouldn’t need him to score. MPj was definitely the next man up. In fact I think my initial list had him instead of Isaac. And MPJ is probably more likely if I had to bet on it. Bridges was also highly considered at a number of spots. I think he’d be a great choice also. His defense and shooting is perfect
From what I understand Ayton is not an option. And personally I liked what they did going small and causing havoc. JJJ and AD are both longer than Bam so I’m comfortable with that rotation at C. But if we wanted a big big possibly Mobley or Wiseman is ready. Then Mitchell Robinson or someone else I’m probably forgetting. The options aren’t great right now
Yeah 2024 could be pretty interesting. France might lose Batum and a couple other guys but they should be good again, and will have home court and probably more confidence after going 1-1 against us.
The era of other countries being happy to get the silver is probably ending.
We can certainly put a better team together as well. Presuming that the NBA schedule will return back to normal by then, we’ll have at least another month for players to prepare and/or rest before jumping right in. Props to Booker, Middleton, and Holiday for going in with no down time or practice with their team. It showed a little but they helped win.
Here’s a write-up about Ayton. It looks like there’s a pathway to play, should he be interested.
The interesting thing for USA is who are you most confident on being an MVP caliber player in 3 years? Giannis and Luka probably project to be the best 2 players entering their prime right now. Tatum maybe? I’ve just never been a huge fan of his but he’s the closest. Young and Morant potentially, but both have a pretty significant flaw they’ve got to do something about
Hmm that’s requiring him to become a citizen, which no idea if he’s interested in or not. And for FIBA to make an exception that benefits USA. Seems unlikely but he definitely has a spot if so
Victor Wembanyama
Definitely an interesting future dynamic where perhaps the best 3-5 players in the world aren’t American but neither are any of them from the same country and we have the next 50 best or whatever.
Emoni Bates should slot in nicely. pretty major oversight. Pls amend ASAP.
Then add in Canada which could be the first non US team to put together a team entirely of current nba players. But they’re basically USA from a continuity standpoint point but with lesser talent. They need to go all in this cycle in the WC leading into the Olympics if they want to finally get even the slightest international success. Get guys to commit to playing the next 3 summers together
Hope you’re right because that would mean Cade is a stud in Detroit
I think we’re getting to a point where we’ll have like, 50 of the 100 best players. We’ll be the favorite basically every time but not overwhelmingly so.
As long as the gold medal streak continues, we’ll probably have to live with a lot of roster turnover because some guys who have already won gold aren’t going to be motivated to come back and give up their summer, especially if they’re older (which is fair enough). But we need to find a core group that will commit to both World Cup and Olympics.
Like the article mentioned, Hakeem did it (which I totally forgot about!) so there is precedent.
Even though I’m still a teeny little bit sore (I’ve almost got it managed down to zero!) about his “show me love” comment back when he was a recruit, I could see Booker finishing top-3 or winning MVP in the next three years.