2024 Olympic BASKETBALL Thread (pt.5: Men's Semifinals Thursday August 8)

[zimpy27]

KD is the best Olympian in basketball. he deserves a start for the rest of the Olympics.

Sure, but where is Lebron, the best player on the team and in the olympics?

KD is the best player on the team and in the Olympics.

No egos should be on this roster and Lebron shouldn't feel entitled to start every game. Neither should Steph.

LeBron is the central playmaker.

White
Booker
Durant
LeBron
Embiid

This squad makes sense if you are targeting the best players, no?

[xb3at band1tx]

KD is the best Olympian in basketball. he deserves a start for the rest of the Olympics.

Sure, but where is Lebron, the best player on the team and in the olympics?

KD is the best player on the team and in the Olympics.

No egos should be on this roster and Lebron shouldn't feel entitled to start every game. Neither should Steph.

Have you been watching? He's easily been their best playmaker and has been basically peak Draymond for USA.

Steph has yet to even find any real rhythm in the official games for goodness sake.

[Mrakar]

USA and Germany should both win it easily.
French will have refs on their side again but i dont think it will.be enough.
Honestly i dont think Serbia has a chance against USA, they are just too deep and we are awfull from 3.
Also they play harder against Serbia because of Jokic.
In exibition game Curry got hot, in group Durant was on fire i just hope they have a bad game on thursday so we can at least have semi-interesting game.

[KG Leonard]

I know Kerr said he won't start Durant, but I think he should feature a starting lineup with the best bball Olympian going forward.

Curry
Edwards
White
KD
Embiid

Booker’s been the most consistent player along with LeBron and you want to bench him? Lol. Not happening.

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Booker has been very strong, the most consistent of starting 5 by far, he is playing like an elite 3& D player shooting great catch and shoot. Impressive to adapt that much from his star shots role.
You can't ever replace him with Ant being bad with turnovers playing Lou Williams selfish scorer on the great bench team carried by AD/White/Jrue/Bam defence.

I'm surprised Tatum isn't playing off the stars as well as 2021 Olympics but then I understand in NBA games he owns old Lebron, KD in every match up.

[RookieStar]

USA and Germany should both win it easily.
French will have refs on their side again but i dont think it will.be enough.
Honestly i dont think Serbia has a chance against USA, they are just too deep and we are awfull from 3.
Also they play harder against Serbia because of Jokic.
In exibition game Curry got hot, in group Durant was on fire i just hope they have a bad game on thursday so we can at least have semi-interesting game.

I dunno... if GER didnt have that big ead early on, i suspect that the refs would whipout the ol homecooking dish.

We will see in the rematch.

[cdubbz]

Sure, but where is Lebron, the best player on the team and in the olympics?

KD is the best player on the team and in the Olympics.

No egos should be on this roster and Lebron shouldn't feel entitled to start every game. Neither should Steph.

Have you been watching? He's easily been their best playmaker and has been basically peak Draymond for USA.

Steph has yet to even find any real rhythm in the official games for goodness sake.

I've been watching yes.

Team USA had 2 close games without KD. Blow ours WITH KD.

Lebron has had an amazing Olympics, but has shown tendencies to hold the ball and stop movement as well as try and play hero ball. KD hasn't. all his offense came within flow of the game.

[Rainwater]

KD is the best player on the team and in the Olympics.

No egos should be on this roster and Lebron shouldn't feel entitled to start every game. Neither should Steph.

Have you been watching? He's easily been their best playmaker and has been basically peak Draymond for USA.

Steph has yet to even find any real rhythm in the official games for goodness sake.

I've been watching yes.

Team USA had 2 close games without KD. Blow ours WITH KD.

Lebron has had an amazing Olympics, but has shown tendencies to hold the ball and stop movement as well as try and play hero ball. KD hasn't. all his offense came within flow of the game.

I don't think you are watching the game, LBJ is pretty much running the show for team USA.

[LordCovington33]

France v US would be great, with Serbia and Germany battling for the bronze.

[Rainwater]

Watch on YouTube

I thought I was the only one who noticed this, lol.

[Benedict_Boozer]

Serbia is good, I think it will be a close game initially but their problem is at some point in the game - the US sending waves of talent over whelms them and they gas out. If I’m their coach, Jokic goes all 40.

[Mr Puddles]

I can't be the only one who is disappointed that the semi finals are re-dos of group stage matches. I think there should be some sort of rule that whenever this happens there's a switch where the lower ranked team faces the higher ranked team on the other side of the bracket, i.e. US vs France and Germany vs Serbia.

[durden_tyler]

I can't be the only one who is disappointed that the semi finals are re-dos of group stage matches. I think there should be some sort of rule that whenever this happens there's a switch where the lower ranked team faces the higher ranked team on the other side of the bracket, i.e. US vs France and Germany vs Serbia.

Argument can be made for both permutations of the match-ups, even US drew with France then we'd be screaming they are not really tested until the gold medal match as simply Serbia is the better team.What we're glad is at least Germany played up to their potential and we did not get this weird Germany vs USA in the final four. These are the four best teams in the tournament at this stage (no thanks Canada, should have been you, but they choked).

[Mr Puddles]

I can't be the only one who is disappointed that the semi finals are re-dos of group stage matches. I think there should be some sort of rule that whenever this happens there's a switch where the lower ranked team faces the higher ranked team on the other side of the bracket, i.e. US vs France and Germany vs Serbia.

Argument can be made for both permutations of the match-ups, even US drew with France then we'd be screaming they are not really tested until the gold medal match as simply Serbia is the better team.What we're glad is at least Germany played up to their potential and we did not get this weird Germany vs USA in the final four. These are the four best teams in the tournament at this stage (no thanks Canada, should have been you, but they choked).

I'm not making the argument from the standpoint that the US is not being tested, I'm simply taking about having more diversity of games. As viewer I'd much rather see two new matches, rather than two re-matches.

[durden_tyler]

I can't be the only one who is disappointed that the semi finals are re-dos of group stage matches. I think there should be some sort of rule that whenever this happens there's a switch where the lower ranked team faces the higher ranked team on the other side of the bracket, i.e. US vs France and Germany vs Serbia.

Argument can be made for both permutations of the match-ups, even US drew with France then we'd be screaming they are not really tested until the gold medal match as simply Serbia is the better team.What we're glad is at least Germany played up to their potential and we did not get this weird Germany vs USA in the final four. These are the four best teams in the tournament at this stage (no thanks Canada, should have been you, but they choked).

I'm not making the argument from the standpoint that the US is not being tested, I'm simply taking about having more diversity of games. As viewer I'd much rather see two new matches, rather than two re-matches.

Yes that has an appeal too. But Serbia (an improved version) vs USA looks like a tasty match-up too. The only problem with this Final Four actually is France-- just not the same quality as these three other teams and we can blame Canada for that.

[Johnny Tomala]

3 out of 4 quarter-finals correct.

My picks for the semi-finals: Germany, USA.

[lambchop]

Argument can be made for both permutations of the match-ups, even US drew with France then we'd be screaming they are not really tested until the gold medal match as simply Serbia is the better team. What we're glad is at least Germany played up to their potential and we did not get this weird Germany vs USA in the final four. These are the four best teams in the tournament at this stage (no thanks Canada, should have been you, but they choked).

I'm not making the argument from the standpoint that the US is not being tested, I'm simply taking about having more diversity of games. As viewer I'd much rather see two new matches, rather than two re-matches.

Yes that has an appeal too. But Serbia (an improved version) vs USA looks like a tasty match-up too. The only problem with this Final Four actually is France-- just not the same quality as these three other teams and we can blame Canada for that.

France experimented with their lineups towards the end of that game against Germany. They discovered something when they inserted Cordinier and Albicy. All of a sudden they were getting fastbreaks and dunks. Those guys got playing time in the first half against Canada and, of course, Gobert was benched. All of that is why they were able to overwhelm Canada.

I'm not saying they will beat Germany, but I don't expect a blowout like we saw in their last encounter.

[DWadeno3]

I expect both games to be more competitive than they were in the group stages. It'll be interesting to see whether France has actually discovered something or whether Canada really just mostly beat themselves (and struggled with the officiating of course).

[Pachinko_]

Putting NBA and Euroleague players on the same floor and making comparisons has been very eye-opening
Dudes like Micic, Calathes, Papagiannis, Voigtmann etc all made a name for themselves in the Euroleague but they looked like old men compared to NBA athletes. And those could move well like Petrusev couldn't really do anything else.

Euroleague needs to boost their budget and bring better players urgently. But to find the money they need more tickets, to get more tickets they need better players, and to get better players they need more money. It's a vicious circle.

NBA wins. **** rules, **** refs, but the talent level is just monumental.

[NoStatsGuy]

Putting NBA and Euroleague players on the same floor and making comparisons has been very eye-opening
Dudes like Micic, Calathes, Papagiannis, Voigtmann etc all made a name for themselves in the Euroleague but they looked like old men compared to NBA athletes. And those could move well like Petrusev couldn't really do anything else.

Euroleague needs to boost their budget and bring better players urgently. But to find the money they need more tickets, to get more tickets they need better players, and to get better players they need more money. It's a vicious circle.

NBA wins. **** rules, **** refs, but the talent level is just monumental.

its never gonna happen.

i agree with your observation of course. the level between top euroleague guys and nba players is major. but in europe there is not much money going into basketball. european players get a good solid foundation in europe. and some of the exceptional players move over to the nba to earn the big bucks.

there is still a very big difference between the NBA and the rest of the world. sports is first and foremost still seen as competition and the NBA more and more moves towards entertainment. Soccer is so dominant over here all the big companys and rich people support soccer. people here dont buy jerseys or spend huge ticket prices for basketball, companies dont really prioritize advertising in basketball. the TV coverage is terrible, i bet the leagues dont really get much TV money. Basketball will never be a big thing over here. its soccer and only soccer, and then there is many other sports before basketball like tennis, hockey, regular athletics.

i think overall basketball climbed the rankings the last 20 years for sure. but its still not nearly as popular as many other sports.
even after winning gold at the world cup, it did not do that much for germany. germans here still dont wanna watch the basketball games for the olympics for example let alone regular seasonal team ball.
and then we didnt even talk about how different the NBA is economically. its a completely different set up. no franchising, no salary caps, etc.

it would take like a jokic, luka giannis all going back as big names to europe to get some more eyes. but they are not gonna leave 300-500 million contracts behind to play for peanuts in europe. besides every players' dream is to go to the nba, so all the players that have a chance will do it.

i wish i could be saying something different, but unfortunately i dont see it happening.

[stoo]

seeing everybody taking germany over france, makes me believe serbia and germany will play for bronze