How Would an Amateur Team Do in Today's Olympic Basketball?

[What Would Jesus Do?]

What team would you put together from today's non-pros? And how do you think they would do in today's Olympics? I'm including guys who went pro in the last draft, but haven't played a regular season game yet as a pro. So it's HS, college, draftees, and graduates who haven't played pro ball.

 

[Archer2]

If we didn't have to play the American pros, we'd still be favored to win. No country produces the level of basketball talent that we do.

 

[RP12]

They'd be in medal contention but not the favorite for Gold. Early entries makes a huge difference along with the rest of the world catching up a bit.

 

[Spacegrass]

If we had to send all college guys we could compete for the Gold most years. But it would most likely never be a shoe in. We would medal most years but sure fire gold would be much more few and far between.

 

[johnhelvete]

I think you could have picked 12 undrafted players from the NBA draft in 2015, sign them to an 18 month "Olympic contract" and build a team. Have the players practice together for over a year, scrimmage playing teams with international rules, and compete for the gold.

 

[Archer2]

I think you could have picked 12 undrafted players from the NBA draft in 2015, sign them to an 18 month "Olympic contract" and build a team. Have the players practice together for over a year, scrimmage playing teams with international rules, and compete for the gold.

As do I.

The LOM gets so much credit for leading us to the Gold when none of the other teams have talent that even approaches the talent of our team. Seth Greenberg could coach our team to the Gold.

 

[heelmanwilm]

Guys we would get SMOKED. numerous countries have teams with nba vets and have played together for years. We wouldnt sniff a medal.

 

[coryfly]

Guys we would get SMOKED. numerous countries have teams with nba vets and have played together for years. We wouldnt sniff a medal.

Yeah, if we sent non-NBA players we wouldn't come close to a medal. International teams aren't as good as they were a few years back but they are still light way ahead of any group of college athletes we could put out there.

 

[TRU CANE]

Agree with Cory and Heelman.

Let's not forget 2004. Three losses.

 

[gunslingerdick]

Agree with Cory and Heelman.

Let's not forget 2004. Three losses.

That 2004 team had problems. I'm sure you and your duke brethren love to attribute that team's dysfunction to the coach but that team had Iverson, Marbury and Lamar Odom. That right there is a lot of dysfunction. And other than Duncan, that team was devoid of talented bigs.

 

[RP12]

That 2004 team had problems. I'm sure you and your duke brethren love to attribute that team's dysfunction to the coach but that team had Iverson, Marbury and Lamar Odom. That right there is a lot of dysfunction. And other than Duncan, that team was devoid of talented bigs.

Still pretty startling in retrospect. At least 4 of the top 100 players in NBA history and lost more games than the US had lost in it's Olympic history to that point. Should be a black eye to some of those, particularly Lebron but seems to have been largely forgotten.

 

[RyanJamesIII]

I don't think Lebron, DWade and Carmelo played a lot of minutes in those games for some reason.

 

[RyanJamesIII]

Iverson, Marbury, Wade, Boozer, Carmelo, Lebron, Okafor, Marion, Stoudemire, Duncan, Odom, Jefferson

that team smokes any college team you put in front of it and they lost 3 games.

 

[TarHeel Gary]

What team would you put together from today's non-pros? And how do you think they would do in today's Olympics? I'm including guys who went pro in the last draft, but haven't played a regular season game yet as a pro. So it's HS, college, draftees, and graduates who haven't played pro ball.

COACH DEAN SMITH WON AND WAS USING ALOT OF HIS PLAYERS!

 

[dadika13]

Amateur team would get crushed. The international game is so much better now than in the 80s and 90s, even in a down international talent level this Olympics.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

COACH DEAN SMITH WON AND WAS USING ALOT OF HIS PLAYERS!

That was back when we were still using amateurs, while some (notably the Russians) weren't. When it became clear we couldn't keep winning if we stuck to the amateurs, we went over to the dark side.

 

[tarheel0910]

Iverson, Marbury, Wade, Boozer, Carmelo, Lebron, Okafor, Marion, Stoudemire, Duncan, Odom, Jefferson

that team smokes any college team you put in front of it and they lost 3 games.

Pretty sure Lebron and Melo were rookies. That makes a difference. Most of the top talent at the time didn't play.

 

[TRU CANE]

If you've watched the last two games I think this question has been answered

 

[UNC Blue Hup]

The world of basketball has caught up big time since the 80's..that's the difference..Brice would have made this year'd team if it were college players..but ya, no chance now

 

[DSouthr]

If the rest of the world could use their pro players then it would be hard, maybe we could fight it out for a bronze and maybe every now and then more. The hard part is the rest of the world teams now play so well together while we out talent them by a mile but play more isolation one on one than together as a team. The current team was a missed wide open trey by a good shooter from having to go in to OT yesterday? You would have thought the game before would have been a wake up call but clearly the rest of the world is not in awe of this team.

 

[tarfoot]

Most of the teams had Pro players, long before the USA did. We would not fair well without our Pros now.