Goeiedag, enchantée and welcome to this week's episode of Eight 2 Four presents: All-NBA Team of the Week. The draft is over, free agency is about to get underway and the NBA is 75 years old. Plenty to discuss in the upcoming weeks but before we get there, we'll take a closer look at the Basketball tournament at the Olympic Games. The group stages in the Men’s and Women’s tournaments are nearly completed and the countries will start preparing for the knockout stages. This week, we’ll focus on who we think will make it to the Olympic Final. Get ready for your All-NBA Team of the Week.
PICK #1
Our first pick of the week is the Boomers. The Australian Men’s team is on a mission to win a medal in Tokyo. They’ve been close a few times before, and it has to be the year they finally get there. In the lead-up to the Olympics, they won all their exhibition games in Las Vegas. Those included wins against Argentina, Nigeria and, of course, the US. The Boomers are strong and hungry, not even Ben Simmons pulling out at the last minute will deter them from their goal.
Led by Patty Mills, the Boomers so far have not lost a game at the Olympics. In the group stage, they beat Nigeria comfortably, played a tight game against Italy and impressed against Germany. We don’t know yet who they’ll play in the quarter finals, the draw happens after all the group games have been completed, but this team doesn’t have to fear anyone. It seems unlikely that they’ll go home without a medal.
PICK #2
Our second pick of the week is the Belgian Cats. The Belgian Women’s team has travelled to Tokyo with an unspoken dream of winning a medal, maybe even the gold medal. In their opening game of these Olympics, the Cats played the Australian Opals. The Opals are, besides the US, one of the most successful basketball countries at the Olympics in the last 30 years. And Belgium just played them off the floor in the final quarter of the game. They had no issues at all in their second game, beating Puerto Rico comfortably.
The Cats are led by Belgium’s most successful basketball player ever, Emma Meeseman. Meeseman won the WNBA in 2019, with the Washington Mystics, and was the Finals MVP that year. She has also won the Euroleague 4 times. And she is only 28 years old. Belgium has never qualified for the Olympics before, and are really keen to impress the world this upcoming week. Their first test is the last game of the group stage, when they meet China.
PICK #3
Our third pick of the week is Les Blues, the basketball team from France. Not really known for being a big time basketball country, this scrappy team has put together a good series of games early in the Olympics, beating the US, Czech Republic and Iran. They finished top of their group and are looking to add the first medal to their collection since Sydney 2000, when they won the Silver Medal.
With 5 NBA players, this team has plenty of experience on the roster, especially with names like Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum and Evan Fournier, who finished with 28 points in the game against the US. This roster is not scared of anyone and they play traditional team basketball. If they’re lucky with the draw for the Knockout Round, they could make it pretty far in this tournament.
PICK #4
Our fourth pick of the week is Slovenia. Not really a contender for a medal these Olympic Games but they have put up a show already. In their first game they beat Argentina by 18 points and in the second game they beat Japan by 35 points. Their first test will follow later today when they face Spain in their last game of the Group Stage. Win or lose, doesn’t really matter. Luca Doncic and his teammates have qualified for the Knockout stage already.
And that is basically the Slovenian roster, Luka Doncic and the rest. The majority of the players on this roster play on second tier teams around Europe, and don’t have the experience that most of the other nations at the Olympics have. But they don’t care. This team knows that Luka is their only chance at winning, and they are happy to play like it.
PICK #5
Our fifth pick of the week is the US Basketball Team. No matter what happens, this team will always be the favourite for winning the Gold Medal. This roster is made up with superstars like Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, NBA Champions Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday, elite scorers Devin Booker, Zach Lavine and Jayson Tatum, and big men like Bam Adebayo and Draymond Green. No other roster at these Olympics comes even remotely close to the individual quality of this team. But they don’t have to.
The one thing that this US team doesn’t have in comparison with the other countries is a history of playing together. For any of these stars, it is the first time that they play together, where most other countries have been playing together for at least a decade. Not only that, 3 of the better players on this team only arrived in Tokyo on the day of their first game. You can see this team grow in the tournament, and once they get to the knock-out phase, they will be ready.
This is our All-NBA team of the Week. Please share our podcast and give us 5 stars. If you have any questions, you can contact the show on eight2fouroffice@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, ballers out!
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