I found a pretty good article by Matt Moore from CBS Sports about this topic. http://www.cbssports.com/olympics/n...oops-and-why-its-time-to-manage-expectations/ Basically puts into more eloquent writing what we were discussing. Solid read.
Don't take anything for granted! It's knockout and look what happened to the Aussie girls this morning who fully expected a medal.
My prediction albeit a pretty obvious one.. Gold - USA Silver - Australia Bronze - Spain Outside of some freak injuries, I don't see it any other way.
croatia might have the second best team at the oympics. they have a greater number of talented players and better depth on the bench than australia.
I should know what to expect from them by now, but I always feel disappointed. I mean, they only shot 27% from the 3 and committed 17 TOs (in a 40 min game!). To add insult to injury, Valanciunas only had 5pts and was outscored by Bogut, David Andersen (!) and Aron Baynes (16pts).
The Spanish really woke up after starting so weak in the tournament. Up 43-30 at halftime versus France.
natum does absolutely nothing and he is a max level player apparently lol. always been extremely overrated for someone so limited
and that doesn't even include paul and leonard. you could argue we don't have 7 of our 8 best players on the team. that's another thing that reminds me of 2004. that 2004 team was supposed to have a lot better players but almost all of them dropped out after the qualifying tournament of the americas (some due to terrorism concerns). so just like 2004 this team ended up with less complete players who don't always fit together so well.