Have been thinking about this for a few days. On paper, the USA clearly has the most talent and deepest player pool to pull from. But obviously there’s a lot more to it than just getting a bunch of talented guys together and asking them to just play. There would need to be some chemistry and guys willing to accept their role.
For this hypothetical, everyone is healthy and willing to play. There’s a deep pool of guards to choose from, but pickings are a little slim when it comes to big men.
Team B
PG: Kyrie Irving, Trae Young
SG: Jaylen Brown, Donovan Mitchell, James Harden
SF: Jimmy Butler
PF: Paolo Banchero
C: Myles Turner
Team C: Knicks & Friends coached by Thibs
PG: Jalen Brunson
SG: Josh Hart, Donte Divincenzo, Miles McBride
SF: Mikal Bridges
PF: Julius Randle
C: Mitch Robinson, Isaiah Hartenstein*
*Hartenstein was born in Portland and wasn’t invited to play for Germany so I’m counting him
Other players in the pool to round out both rosters:
PG: Ja Morant, De’Aaron Fox, Tyrese Maxey, Cade Cunningham, Darius Garland, Russell Westbrook
SG: Zach Lavine, Jalen Green, Klay Thompson, Desmond Bane, Anfernee Simons, Dejounte Murray, Austin Reaves, Alex Caruso, Herb Jones, Jalen Suggs
SF: Jerami Grant, Keldon Johnson, Scottie Barnes, Michael Porter Jr, Demar Derozan, Kyle Kuzma, De’Andre Hunter, Keegan Murray, Bruce Brown
PF: Jaren Jackson Jr, Aaron Gordon, Evan Mobley, Draymond Green, Tobias Harris, Zach Collins, Obi Toppin, Jaden McDaniels
C: Brook Lopez, Jarret Allen, Naz Reid, Mason Plumlee, Walker Kessler
Alternative Question: Which countries would have faired better if they had all their best players? Were there any guys who would have been a lock for their country but didn’t play for whatever reason?
Top 2 would be the prohibitive favorites. Top 4 would probably be the favorites narrowly. Anything past that is probably not gonna be favored to win it.
Lets be real anything other than the team we had ain’t winning the gold
I think if you built teams around existing nba teams and coaches with existing chemistry it works better. If you just replace Porzingis and Horford on the Celtics and keep Mazzula coaching that would be a very good team.
If you had a constructed team rather than star power there’s a decent chance you’re wrong.
Especially if they followed the European sport schedule, having a club schedule that matches FIBA rules and regularly played together in various competition, USA Teams A-C would be the betting favorites to podium sweep. As it is where the team is hodgepodge and playing in different circumstances, the B team may be able to push for a medal but probably come up short in the Quarters.
Does the A team have to take the 12 best? Do they get priority choice before team B starts? If we tried to spread things around to have a solid 7 man rotation with impactful benches, you have to imagine they could make 5 or 6 very competitive teams.
Teams Red, White and Blue with the top 21 players split across three teams would obviously be dominant.
Could also see what teams look like if divided by geography.
I think the best way to maximize the number of medal capable teams is to just take the top X number of NBA teams that you’d think would be the best without their international players and patch them up with players from the rest of the league. This way you minimize any team chemistry issues which is usually Team USA’s biggest weakness while still probably having more talent on average than most international teams.
Ya Celtics just need a couple bigs to replace KP and Horford and it would be a good team.
I think the number is infinite. I don’t even think chemistry and role accepting is a factor.
Let me guess, you didn’t watch the last World Cup.
team C wouldn’t work because Brunson and Randle were still recovering during the team building
Probably a lot. There are individual teams like the Celtics or TWolves who could win on their own (they’d need to replace KP and Gobert). It really does come down to having 3-4 stars who work well together and players to fill in a role around them. Like, why couldn’t Sam Hauser be a knockdown shooter or Lu Dort be a defensive specialist?
The other best teams had big stars, but Serbia with Jokic for example, isn’t even as good as the current Nuggets team. A guy like Yabusele was balling for France and he can’t even get an NBA invite.
We kind-of just tossed a bunch of our best players out there and won on talent, but I think it would be easy enough to construct enough rosters based on chemistry and players knowing their individual roles. A guy like Tatum who absolutely sucked would likely be much better in a star role than in a supporting one.
Lu Dort plays for Canada, fyi, and was at these Olympics, but your point still stands
Of course, I knew that. I wasn’t trying to be dismissive, just quickly came up with two players who were great in their specific roles off the top of my head. That wasn’t really the main point of my post, but I can see why somebody from Brampton might take offense. I’ve actually spent multiple entire summers in both Toronto and Montreal. I absolutely love my time across the border.
If it’s hypothetical then you should include former college stars, d-league, and recently retired but still healthy. I would think there could be a solid 5 to 10 teams that could win it if they weren’t playing against each other
Khris Middleton playing the KD role
Feel like people are sleeping on Desmond Bane (and Ja to some extent)…I bet Bane comes through in a big way for USA in ‘28.
I think MPJ can hoop with these guys.
US could field two teams and get Gold and Silver, but they couldn’t get all three.
Paul George even left off this guy’s list.
You really are one of the great thinkers of our time
Better question would be what would happen if every state should send it’s own team instead of just one team per all of them :D
Not many, since the best team almost lost to Servia.