2012 Olympics: Men's Basketball Teams
As reigning world and Olympic champions, Team USA will enter the London Olympics as major favorites. And rightfully so; with LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and other NBA superstars expected to participate, Mike Krzyzewski's club will be absolutely loaded.
But Coach K's club won't be the only team in London with NBA talent. In fact, most of the twelve teams participating in the men's basketball tournament will sport a few names very familiar to American basketball fans.
Here's a look at the field.
United States
The United States was the first team to lock up a berth in the 2012 Olympic Men's Basketball tournament, doing so by winning the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey.
This version of the "Dream Team" should enter the London games as heavy favorites to repeat as Olympic and world champions. The bulk of the gold-medal core of the 2008 team - LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams and Chris Paul in particular - will be back defending the medals they won in Beijing.
Kevin Durant - who spent much of the 2010 FIBA World Championships making the case that he's the world's most dominant basketball player - will join them, giving Team USA a ridiculously deep roster, heavy on both talent and international experience.
Team USA's biggest concern is size - particularly their lack thereof. Injuries decimated the national team's big man depth chart, as Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, LaMarcus Aldridge and Blake Griffin will all miss London due to injuries, leaving Tyson Chandler and soon-to-be rookie Anthony Davis as the only true centers on the Olympic roster.
Still, Krzyzewski stands a very good chance of becoming the first American men's basketball coach to repeat as Olympic champion since Oklahoma State's legendary Hank Iba led the 1964 and 1968 teams to gold.
Great Britain
Great Britain was given an automatic berth in the 2012 Olympic Basketball Tournament as host nation, but they had to fight for it. FIBA, basketball's governing body, required that the British team prove it can be competitive at the top levels of international competition first.
That seemed a reasonable request, as Britian hadn't qualified for an Olympic basketball tournament since 1948.
The player that drove much of Britain's improvement was Chicago Bulls small forward Luol Deng.
Deng has roots in England, having moved there from his native Sudan as a child, and played for England's under-16 and under-19 national teams. With Deng leading the way, Britain moved up into the "A" level of EuroBasket competition. In March 2011, FIBA ruled that Britain would be given the traditional host nation berth.
Scoring guard Ben Gordon was born in England, and was expected to play for Great Britain as well. But he was a no-show for the team's training camp and was cut from the roster.
NBA fans may also recognize the names of ex-Dallas Maverick Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Joel Freeland - a 2006 first-round draft pick of the Portland Trail Blazers - and center Eric Boateng, who played college ball at Duke and Arizona State. Boateng played for the New York Knicks' summer league team in 2010, and was on the preseason roster of the Denver Nuggets. They are coached by Chris Finch, an assistant on Kevin McHale's staff with the Houston Rockets.
Simply qualifying for the tournament was a victory for British basketball - and it may be the only one for this team.
In the FIBA rankings published after the 2010 World Championships, Britain placed 56th - well below such noted basketball powers as Bulgaria, Kazakhstan and Lebanon.
Tunisia
The biggest upset of the 2012 Olympic Men's Basketball tournament may have taken place almost a year before the opening ceremonies, when Tunisia upset Angola to win the FIBA Africa tournament.
Angola had won six consecutive FIBA Africa titles and ten of eleven, dating back to 1989. Tunisia's best-ever finish, before this year, was a silver medal.
This will be Tunisia's first Olympic men's basketball tournament.
Tunisia's best player - and the MVP of the FIBA Africa tournament - is 7'1' center Salah Mejri. Mejri scored 21 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked three shots in the 67-56 win over Angola. He's also the only member of the Tunisian squad that plays professionally in Europe, as a member of the Antwerp Giants. That certainly isn't a good sign when considering this team's chances.
The 2010 FIBA rankings listed Tunisia 37th in the world. Though they'll move up a bit after their big win - Angola was ranked 13th - it is hard to imagine them making much noise in the Olympics.
Australia
The Australian Men's National Team - known as "The Boomers" - will return to the Olympics in 2012 after winning the 2011 FIBA Oceania tournament.
Well, "tournament" may be overstating the case. Oceania is by far the most top-heavy of FIBA's geographically-divided regions. Australia and New Zealand, as the only two competitors vying for an Olympic berth this time around, played a best-of-three series to decide things, and the Boomers won the first two games by a combined score of 172-142.
The Boomers were led by point guard Patrick Mills (San Antonio Spurs), center Aleks Maric (Greek power Panathinaikos) and guard Matt Nielsen (Khimki Moscow). But they won't have either of the best two basketball players with ties to Australia - center Andrew Bogut or guard Kyrie Irving. Bogut - now property of the Golden State Warriors - opted to sit out the London Games to recover from his latest injury. Irving - the 2011 NBA Rookie of the Year - was born in Melbourne, Australia but grew up in New Jersey, opted to participate with Team USA's Select Team in the hopes of playing for the Dream Team at some point in the future.
With Bogut and/or Irving, Australia would have been a threat for the medal round. As presently constituted, that seems highly unlikely.
Argentina
Host nation Argentina's win in the FIBA Americas tournament wasn't much of a surprise - the team is loaded with NBA stars, and the inside-outside combination of Spurs guard Manu Ginobili and Rockets forward Luis Scola matches up pretty nicely with any other team headed to London, including America's. Scola is one of the best low-post scorers in the world; he scored a tournament-high 31 points in the championship game against Brazil and was named MVP.
Ginobili is one of the most creative wing players in recent memory and a three-time NBA champion. Those two, along with forwards Carlos Delfino (Milwaukee Bucks) and Andres Nocioni (Philadelphia 76ers) and center Fabricio Oberto form the core of Argentina's "Golden Generation" of basketball players; one that beat the United States in the 2002 FIBA World Championships, took gold at the Athens games in 2004 and won bronze in Beijing in 2008.
But despite all that talent and experience and the home-court edge, Argentina struggled to close things out against a young, athletic Brazilian team with excellent size in the frontcourt. When Scola went to the bench, Argentina couldn't muster much offense.
London may be the last hurrah for the Golden Generation. But the next generation of Argentine basketball doesn't seem quite as impressive. Can a team so reliant on thirtysomethings make a run at another Olympic title? That seems a lot to ask.
Argentina will enter the London games as a near-lock to reach the medal round, but it's hard to imagine them getting past the United States or Spain to reach the top of the medal stand.
Brazil
Team Brazil qualified for the London Games by placing second in the FIBA Americas tournament. That was a very impressive showing, considering the fact that three of four active Brazilian players in the NBA - guard Leandro Barbosa - a free agent who played last season for the Raptors and Pacers - forward/center Anderson Varejao of the Cleveland Cavaliers and center Nene of the Washington Wizards.
How did they do it?
With a team full of Varejao/Tiago Splitter-types. Long, athletic frontcourt players that control the paint and held opposing offenses to just over 40 percent field goal shooting for the tournament.
Barbosa, Varejao and Nene will play in London and should give Team Brazil a very good chance to reach the medal round.
Spain
Team Spain should be America's biggest competitor at the London Games, thanks to a roster that very nearly matches Team USA's in terms of NBA talent.
Spain's biggest - literally - asset is an enormous and highly-skilled frontcourt anchored by the Gasol brothers - Pau, of the Lakers and Marc, of the Grizzlies - and Oklahoma City's Serge Ibaka. But Spain's most important player might be one of the few that doesn't play in the United States.
Not any more, anyway.
Juan Carlos Navarro - La Bomba, to his fans - does an excellent job playing off the Gasols and scoring from the wing. Navarro played one season with the Memphis Grizzlies back in 2007-08, before returning to his native country and a lucrative five-year contract with Barcelona. Navarro led Spain with 27 points in their 2011 Eurobasket-clinching victory over France.
NBA fans will be very familiar with Spain's backcourt as well, which features Rudy Fernandez (Denver Nuggets) and Jose Calderon (Toronto Raptors). Ricky Rubio (Minnesota Timberwolves) won't play due to injury.
France
Team France will advance as far as Tony Parker can carry them. At the 2011 Eurobasket tournament, that meant a run to the championship game - and a loss to Spain.
The combination of Parker and fellow Spurs draftee Nando de Colo will give France one of the Olympic tournament's more-imposing guard tandems. Nicolas Batum is a force on the wing (though Juan Carlos "La Bomba" Navarro got the better of him in the Eurobasket final).
Joakim Noah is one of the NBA's better defense-and-rebounding centers, Boris Diaw is one of the league's better frontcourt passers, and Kevin Seraphin has a lot of promise.
Throw in Ronny Turiaf and Mickael Pietrus - who missed Eurobasket due to injury - and Ian Mahinmi, and "Les Bleus" have the look of a medal contender.
Or do they?
France's biggest problem is size; they simply don't have the frontcourt bodies to match up with a team like Spain or the USA. Some of Noah's effectiveness is under-cut by the wide-open style of play we usually see in international competition, and Diaw is notorious for his poor conditioning.
Russia
Here's all you need to know about Team China's prospects, now that Yao Ming's playing career is over: they barely squeaked past Jordan, 70-69, to win the FIBA Asia tournament final and accompanying Olympic bid.
With Yao out of the mix, China's best player is forward Yi Jianlian - and that's a pretty significant step down. Yi was named MVP of the FIBA Asia tournament and torched Jordan for 25 points, 16 boards and six blocks in the final.
But the sixth overall pick in the 2007 draft has played for four NBA teams and has yet to win a regular role; he may not even have an NBA job this season.
Why the drop off? China's development system may be to blame. Players are chosen for China's state-sponsored athletic schools largely based on their height; as a result, Team China has plenty of seven-footers, but is incredibly weak at the guard spots.
Lithuania
Russia needed the Olympic Qualifying Tournament to lock up a spot in the London Games. But don't take that as a sign of weakness; there are quite a few very good teams in Europe... the top two won automatic Olympic berths at last year's Eurobasket tournament, and Russia finished third.
The team is led by NBA veteran Andrei Kirilenko. That name will be very familiar to NBA fans; Kirilenko spent ten years with the Utah Jazz before playing last year's lockout-shortened season in his home country.
(He also made headlines due to his wife's... unique approach to monogamy.
With his albatross wingspan, Kirilenko is a general nuisance on defense, blocking shots and disrupting passing lanes.
He'll be joined in London by several other players with extensive NBA experience, including Timofey Mozgov (Denver Nuggets), Viktor Khryapa and Sergey Monya. Shooting guard Alexey Shved, who scored 22 points and had six assists in Russia's Olympic Qualifying semifinal win over Nigeria, is set to join the Minnesota Timberwolves this season. And center Alexander (you know him as Sasha) Kaun played college ball for the Kansas Jayhawks and won a national title in 2008.
Nigeria
Team Lithuania will have something to prove in London. The fifth-ranked team in the world according to FIBA, they finished a disappointing fifth at last year's Eurobasket tournament, despite having home-court advantage as the tournament's host. Only the top two finishers automatically qualified for the Olympics, so Lithuania was forced to play their way in via the Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
The team boasts some significant talent, including soon-to-be Toronto Raptors rookie Jonas Valanciunas, his Toronto teammate Linas Kleiza, and ex-Indiana Pacer Sarunas Jasikevicus.
Many think Valanciunas will be a star in the NBA, but he's a bit raw and could be exposed by this tournament's veteran big men.
On the other hand, Lithuania has proven to be very vulnerable to quick guards. Macedonia's Bo McCalebb torched them for 23 points at Eurobasket, and Nigeria's Tony Skinn had a big game in the qualifiers.
Nigeria qualified for the London Games by finishing third overall in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in London. They sealed the deal with a win over the Dominican Republic, a team that features NBA All-Star Al Horford of the Atlanta Hawks and is coached by Kentucky's John Calipari.
Team Nigeria's best players are, in fact, Americans. Their top player is forward Al-Farouq Aminu of the Los Angeles Clippers...
who was born in Atlanta, Georgia. (His parents are Nigerian.) Their second-best player is Ike Diogu... who was born in Buffalo, New York. (His parents... ditto.)
Another name American basketball fans might recognize: Tony Skinn, who was a member of the legendary George Mason team that reached the Final Four back in 2006. Skinn was born in Lagos, Nigeria but spent many of his formative years in Maryland. He has been playing professionally in Europe.
As reigning world and Olympic champions, Team USA will enter the London Olympics as major favorites. And rightfully so; with LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and other NBA superstars expected to participate, Mike Krzyzewski's club will be absolutely loaded.
But Coach K's club won't be the only team in London with NBA talent. In fact, most of the twelve teams participating in the men's basketball tournament will sport a few names very familiar to American basketball fans.
Here's a look at the field.
United States
The United States was the first team to lock up a berth in the 2012 Olympic Men's Basketball tournament, doing so by winning the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey.
This version of the "Dream Team" should enter the London games as heavy favorites to repeat as Olympic and world champions. The bulk of the gold-medal core of the 2008 team - LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams and Chris Paul in particular - will be back defending the medals they won in Beijing.
Kevin Durant - who spent much of the 2010 FIBA World Championships making the case that he's the world's most dominant basketball player - will join them, giving Team USA a ridiculously deep roster, heavy on both talent and international experience.
Team USA's biggest concern is size - particularly their lack thereof. Injuries decimated the national team's big man depth chart, as Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, LaMarcus Aldridge and Blake Griffin will all miss London due to injuries, leaving Tyson Chandler and soon-to-be rookie Anthony Davis as the only true centers on the Olympic roster.
Still, Krzyzewski stands a very good chance of becoming the first American men's basketball coach to repeat as Olympic champion since Oklahoma State's legendary Hank Iba led the 1964 and 1968 teams to gold.
Great Britain
Great Britain was given an automatic berth in the 2012 Olympic Basketball Tournament as host nation, but they had to fight for it. FIBA, basketball's governing body, required that the British team prove it can be competitive at the top levels of international competition first.
That seemed a reasonable request, as Britian hadn't qualified for an Olympic basketball tournament since 1948.
The player that drove much of Britain's improvement was Chicago Bulls small forward Luol Deng.
Deng has roots in England, having moved there from his native Sudan as a child, and played for England's under-16 and under-19 national teams. With Deng leading the way, Britain moved up into the "A" level of EuroBasket competition. In March 2011, FIBA ruled that Britain would be given the traditional host nation berth.
Scoring guard Ben Gordon was born in England, and was expected to play for Great Britain as well. But he was a no-show for the team's training camp and was cut from the roster.
NBA fans may also recognize the names of ex-Dallas Maverick Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Joel Freeland - a 2006 first-round draft pick of the Portland Trail Blazers - and center Eric Boateng, who played college ball at Duke and Arizona State. Boateng played for the New York Knicks' summer league team in 2010, and was on the preseason roster of the Denver Nuggets. They are coached by Chris Finch, an assistant on Kevin McHale's staff with the Houston Rockets.
Simply qualifying for the tournament was a victory for British basketball - and it may be the only one for this team.
In the FIBA rankings published after the 2010 World Championships, Britain placed 56th - well below such noted basketball powers as Bulgaria, Kazakhstan and Lebanon.
Tunisia
The biggest upset of the 2012 Olympic Men's Basketball tournament may have taken place almost a year before the opening ceremonies, when Tunisia upset Angola to win the FIBA Africa tournament.
Angola had won six consecutive FIBA Africa titles and ten of eleven, dating back to 1989. Tunisia's best-ever finish, before this year, was a silver medal.
This will be Tunisia's first Olympic men's basketball tournament.
Tunisia's best player - and the MVP of the FIBA Africa tournament - is 7'1' center Salah Mejri. Mejri scored 21 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked three shots in the 67-56 win over Angola. He's also the only member of the Tunisian squad that plays professionally in Europe, as a member of the Antwerp Giants. That certainly isn't a good sign when considering this team's chances.
The 2010 FIBA rankings listed Tunisia 37th in the world. Though they'll move up a bit after their big win - Angola was ranked 13th - it is hard to imagine them making much noise in the Olympics.
Australia
The Australian Men's National Team - known as "The Boomers" - will return to the Olympics in 2012 after winning the 2011 FIBA Oceania tournament.
Well, "tournament" may be overstating the case. Oceania is by far the most top-heavy of FIBA's geographically-divided regions. Australia and New Zealand, as the only two competitors vying for an Olympic berth this time around, played a best-of-three series to decide things, and the Boomers won the first two games by a combined score of 172-142.
The Boomers were led by point guard Patrick Mills (San Antonio Spurs), center Aleks Maric (Greek power Panathinaikos) and guard Matt Nielsen (Khimki Moscow). But they won't have either of the best two basketball players with ties to Australia - center Andrew Bogut or guard Kyrie Irving. Bogut - now property of the Golden State Warriors - opted to sit out the London Games to recover from his latest injury. Irving - the 2011 NBA Rookie of the Year - was born in Melbourne, Australia but grew up in New Jersey, opted to participate with Team USA's Select Team in the hopes of playing for the Dream Team at some point in the future.
With Bogut and/or Irving, Australia would have been a threat for the medal round. As presently constituted, that seems highly unlikely.
Argentina
Host nation Argentina's win in the FIBA Americas tournament wasn't much of a surprise - the team is loaded with NBA stars, and the inside-outside combination of Spurs guard Manu Ginobili and Rockets forward Luis Scola matches up pretty nicely with any other team headed to London, including America's. Scola is one of the best low-post scorers in the world; he scored a tournament-high 31 points in the championship game against Brazil and was named MVP.
Ginobili is one of the most creative wing players in recent memory and a three-time NBA champion. Those two, along with forwards Carlos Delfino (Milwaukee Bucks) and Andres Nocioni (Philadelphia 76ers) and center Fabricio Oberto form the core of Argentina's "Golden Generation" of basketball players; one that beat the United States in the 2002 FIBA World Championships, took gold at the Athens games in 2004 and won bronze in Beijing in 2008.
But despite all that talent and experience and the home-court edge, Argentina struggled to close things out against a young, athletic Brazilian team with excellent size in the frontcourt. When Scola went to the bench, Argentina couldn't muster much offense.
London may be the last hurrah for the Golden Generation. But the next generation of Argentine basketball doesn't seem quite as impressive. Can a team so reliant on thirtysomethings make a run at another Olympic title? That seems a lot to ask.
Argentina will enter the London games as a near-lock to reach the medal round, but it's hard to imagine them getting past the United States or Spain to reach the top of the medal stand.
Brazil
Team Brazil qualified for the London Games by placing second in the FIBA Americas tournament. That was a very impressive showing, considering the fact that three of four active Brazilian players in the NBA - guard Leandro Barbosa - a free agent who played last season for the Raptors and Pacers - forward/center Anderson Varejao of the Cleveland Cavaliers and center Nene of the Washington Wizards.
How did they do it?
With a team full of Varejao/Tiago Splitter-types. Long, athletic frontcourt players that control the paint and held opposing offenses to just over 40 percent field goal shooting for the tournament.
Barbosa, Varejao and Nene will play in London and should give Team Brazil a very good chance to reach the medal round.
Spain
Team Spain should be America's biggest competitor at the London Games, thanks to a roster that very nearly matches Team USA's in terms of NBA talent.
Spain's biggest - literally - asset is an enormous and highly-skilled frontcourt anchored by the Gasol brothers - Pau, of the Lakers and Marc, of the Grizzlies - and Oklahoma City's Serge Ibaka. But Spain's most important player might be one of the few that doesn't play in the United States.
Not any more, anyway.
Juan Carlos Navarro - La Bomba, to his fans - does an excellent job playing off the Gasols and scoring from the wing. Navarro played one season with the Memphis Grizzlies back in 2007-08, before returning to his native country and a lucrative five-year contract with Barcelona. Navarro led Spain with 27 points in their 2011 Eurobasket-clinching victory over France.
NBA fans will be very familiar with Spain's backcourt as well, which features Rudy Fernandez (Denver Nuggets) and Jose Calderon (Toronto Raptors). Ricky Rubio (Minnesota Timberwolves) won't play due to injury.
France
Team France will advance as far as Tony Parker can carry them. At the 2011 Eurobasket tournament, that meant a run to the championship game - and a loss to Spain.
The combination of Parker and fellow Spurs draftee Nando de Colo will give France one of the Olympic tournament's more-imposing guard tandems. Nicolas Batum is a force on the wing (though Juan Carlos "La Bomba" Navarro got the better of him in the Eurobasket final).
Joakim Noah is one of the NBA's better defense-and-rebounding centers, Boris Diaw is one of the league's better frontcourt passers, and Kevin Seraphin has a lot of promise.
Throw in Ronny Turiaf and Mickael Pietrus - who missed Eurobasket due to injury - and Ian Mahinmi, and "Les Bleus" have the look of a medal contender.
Or do they?
France's biggest problem is size; they simply don't have the frontcourt bodies to match up with a team like Spain or the USA. Some of Noah's effectiveness is under-cut by the wide-open style of play we usually see in international competition, and Diaw is notorious for his poor conditioning.
Russia
Here's all you need to know about Team China's prospects, now that Yao Ming's playing career is over: they barely squeaked past Jordan, 70-69, to win the FIBA Asia tournament final and accompanying Olympic bid.
With Yao out of the mix, China's best player is forward Yi Jianlian - and that's a pretty significant step down. Yi was named MVP of the FIBA Asia tournament and torched Jordan for 25 points, 16 boards and six blocks in the final.
But the sixth overall pick in the 2007 draft has played for four NBA teams and has yet to win a regular role; he may not even have an NBA job this season.
Why the drop off? China's development system may be to blame. Players are chosen for China's state-sponsored athletic schools largely based on their height; as a result, Team China has plenty of seven-footers, but is incredibly weak at the guard spots.
Lithuania
Russia needed the Olympic Qualifying Tournament to lock up a spot in the London Games. But don't take that as a sign of weakness; there are quite a few very good teams in Europe... the top two won automatic Olympic berths at last year's Eurobasket tournament, and Russia finished third.
The team is led by NBA veteran Andrei Kirilenko. That name will be very familiar to NBA fans; Kirilenko spent ten years with the Utah Jazz before playing last year's lockout-shortened season in his home country.
(He also made headlines due to his wife's... unique approach to monogamy.
With his albatross wingspan, Kirilenko is a general nuisance on defense, blocking shots and disrupting passing lanes.
He'll be joined in London by several other players with extensive NBA experience, including Timofey Mozgov (Denver Nuggets), Viktor Khryapa and Sergey Monya. Shooting guard Alexey Shved, who scored 22 points and had six assists in Russia's Olympic Qualifying semifinal win over Nigeria, is set to join the Minnesota Timberwolves this season. And center Alexander (you know him as Sasha) Kaun played college ball for the Kansas Jayhawks and won a national title in 2008.
Nigeria
Team Lithuania will have something to prove in London. The fifth-ranked team in the world according to FIBA, they finished a disappointing fifth at last year's Eurobasket tournament, despite having home-court advantage as the tournament's host. Only the top two finishers automatically qualified for the Olympics, so Lithuania was forced to play their way in via the Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
The team boasts some significant talent, including soon-to-be Toronto Raptors rookie Jonas Valanciunas, his Toronto teammate Linas Kleiza, and ex-Indiana Pacer Sarunas Jasikevicus.
Many think Valanciunas will be a star in the NBA, but he's a bit raw and could be exposed by this tournament's veteran big men.
On the other hand, Lithuania has proven to be very vulnerable to quick guards. Macedonia's Bo McCalebb torched them for 23 points at Eurobasket, and Nigeria's Tony Skinn had a big game in the qualifiers.
Nigeria qualified for the London Games by finishing third overall in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in London. They sealed the deal with a win over the Dominican Republic, a team that features NBA All-Star Al Horford of the Atlanta Hawks and is coached by Kentucky's John Calipari.
Team Nigeria's best players are, in fact, Americans. Their top player is forward Al-Farouq Aminu of the Los Angeles Clippers...
who was born in Atlanta, Georgia. (His parents are Nigerian.) Their second-best player is Ike Diogu... who was born in Buffalo, New York. (His parents... ditto.)
Another name American basketball fans might recognize: Tony Skinn, who was a member of the legendary George Mason team that reached the Final Four back in 2006. Skinn was born in Lagos, Nigeria but spent many of his formative years in Maryland. He has been playing professionally in Europe.