AY CHAP 2012 OLYMPICS IN LONDON (BASKETBALL EDITION) CHEERIO

the olympics!

so, let's recap: the U.S. will be without dwyane wade, derrick rose & dwight howard. some interesting guys could get added to the team.

lamarcus aldridge is also hurt. bynum reportedly has no interest in playing. anthony davis has been added to the pool recently.

of the 12 roster spots, these guys seem to be locks to return:

- lebron
- kobe
- melo
- CP3
- d will
- bosh

that brings back half the guys from 08. the six who will not be returning: wade (out), howard (out), tayshaun prince (old), kidd (old), michael redd (old), boozer (sucks)

durant is also a lock to make the team, which brings us to 7.

the other five seem to be more or less up in the air tho, but this seems to be the pool (in no order): westbrook, harden, chandler, gay, igou, griffin, love, davis

there's been some speculation surrounding cousins, hibbert & monroe, but those guys seem unlikely.

anyway, this should entire thing should be fun even if the team will likely be less invincible than 08.

if you follow the model of how they built the 08 team and want to find analogous players to the guys not returning, you'd end up with something like this:

westbrook in for wade
chandler in for howard
igou in for prince
gay in for redd
griffin in for boozer

not sure there's anyone to replace kidd's role, which means they could go with harden or love for the last spot? or maybe they just drop gay on account of not being all that great and take both harden and love.

Harden should be a lock! He fits perfect for international style ball.

Put Anthony Davis in there for fun imo

westbrook in for wade
chandler in for howard
igou in for prince
gay in for redd
griffin in for boozer

These are almost all improvements

a roster of

pg: paul, d will, russ
sg: kobe
sf: bron, durant, melo, igou
pf: bosh, griffin, love
c: chandler

seems pretty stacked. i guess i fucked up my math in that last post cuz i forgot about durant. so they only need those five guys. my guess would be that they go with four big men and choose a wing stopper like igou over harden bcuz they figure they prob have enough scoring and lebron gives them some versatility all over.

the interesting thing i think will be seeing if they try and add a more defensive minded big guy and only take one of griffin/love. not sure who that person would be, but i'd be mildly terrified about going up against the gasols with my four big men being the four i have up there.

harden is the tough one to leave out but it's hard for me to see him being added because the end of bench guys usually aren't scorers and also he doesn't have much (any?) international experience.

i could see them leaving off both russ and harden and going with gay as your redd-esque shooter and igou as your prince-esque stopper.

not sure i'd agree with those, but just going off the old team.

i'd love to see davis added and personally i'd probably choose him over whichever you didn't want of the griffin/love duo

if i personally was making the team i'd go with the following:

pg: cp3, d will, russ
sg: kobe, harden
sf: lebron, melo, durant
pf: bosh, love
c: chandler, davis

Would like to see like Anthony Morrow or some nonsense like that, a pure shooter like Redd was sposed to be.

Thats a good roster xp,

yeah. i think harden and davis are coming into the process too late to actually make it. i'd expect griffin & igoudala to take those spots.

wd want griffin to play only 10 minute in the first half for dunks
what chance does bron play some 4 after his finals pwnage?

btw lmao at this thread title btw

i'd imagine he'll see a lot of time at the four esp with the emergence of durant but i don't think they'd want him (or lebron would want to) do much back to the basket defending

whoa whoa whoa ibaka is playing for spain? i had no idea. it's too bad spain can't trade one of their three big men.

bosh is out now too, seems to make it certain that both love & griffin will make the team

Bosh was a good fit, thats a bummer.

love seems like an adequate replacement for him tho he's prob a bit worse defensively.

cp3-kobe-durant-lebron-chandler

^this has to be the crunch time lineup right? durant supplants melo, clearly.

melo should see 2nd unit time only imo

like im cool w him quarterbacking the offense against the world's benches

he was great in beijing but i don't see any room for him in the crunchtime 5

there's no dominant all around big man on the team this year so it will be fun to see if they throw out some lineups with lebron at the 5 and melo at the 4

i think that will work against any team except spain

i want spain to throw out a lineup where no one on the floor is smaller than 6' 8"

haha except rubio!
but otm, ibaka and the gasols need to all be out there

rubio is out!

BUMMER rip spain

was hoping he'd be healthy in time

i can't imagine he'd risk it. that would be an insane turnaround for a torn acl.

but for COUNTRY
even if it is stupid spain

haha shit i'm watching highlights of the 08 gold medal game & i forgot that the gasols had their first names on the back of their jersies

MARC

^ this needs to be added to the nba imo

rudy fernadnez was unreal in that game

as was juan carlos navarro

yeah nicknames need to be on nba jerseys too #hoopideas! how tight would it be to see:

BRON
6

MELO
7

BIG BABY
11

bloody 'ell guv ; )

I think you gotta push minutes toward dudes who didn't just finish the playoffs in the most grueling season in NBA history. Like, let Love start over Bosh, for example.

perfect for kobe, then

burnnn

if i personally was making the team i'd go with the following:

pg: cp3, d will, russ
sg: kobe, harden
sf: lebron, melo, durant
pf: bosh, love
c: chandler, davis

― J0rdan S., Thursday, June 28, 2012 5:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

iggy for melo, blake for bosh, gold

spain's gonna be nuts obv

bosh is better than blake

he's also a better fit for that team. not like it matters now anyway.

well, bosh isn't better than blake, but he IS a better fit for the team. i made that knowing he was out tho

as an all around player i'd still take bosh, at least for next season. maybe the next two.

haha shit i'm watching highlights of the 08 gold medal game & i forgot that the gasols had their first names on the back of their jersies

MARC

^ this needs to be added to the nba imo

― J0rdan S., Friday, June 29, 2012 1:07 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

would be pretty sweet if nba players took the habit of south american footballers and changed their names to just one word

btw can somebody point me to where I can get a big bottom bird and a blood sausage, cheers

http://media.whosay.com/199031/199031_la.jpg

NERD

good friend of chris brown

greece just got knocked out of olympic qualifying by Nigeria!

ahaha what is this thing that davis has?????

it's the Olympic mascot lol

lol at the mascot

did iggy go over to collins?

a shocking breaking of doug collins' veil of objectivity. i'm shaken.

i missed the coach k thing

it looked like only a few guys... i don't think iggy was there

idk why i care so much but i'm really happy

nah this is always mad cool

START NBA SEASON NOW PLZ

idk they're just so much better thn everyone im kinda eh

it legit starts in like 1 month and a half or some shit

wake me for lakers/heat *weaps openly*

sager, you fucking terrorist, don't try and bait kobe into playing in 2016

haha

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1290171/rudyguile.gif

Al Michaels having to talk about basketball is very Mitt Romney who let the dogs out

xp haha

i want doc to coach in 2016

shaka smart or gtfo

yeah doc would be good

or stan van

make lebron player-coach tbh

Popovich, come on guys

Pop is obviously the best option from the guys being discussed

Doc would just let them run around and do whatever and go life and death with Spain again

yeah pop would be totally amazing, but something tells me he's the type of dude who just wants to chill in the offseason

nice photo

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/08/13/sports/13basketball-durant-james/13basketball-durant-james-articleLarge.jpg

after the lebron 3

http://d1gvvzwii9pf62.cloudfront.net/1024-long/TX-NYTLR-30129975B-BG6I4140-15m.jpg

yeah pop duh

pop should just coach France tho

i love how blatantly the US players are being on twitter -- they're all like "we're getting drunk as fuck tonight"

Kevin Love ‏@kevinlove
Project X part 2 tonight!!! @JHarden13 @tysonchandler @KDTrey5 @KingJames @russwest44 @DeronWilliams @carmeloanthony @CP3 @mindofAI9

also, this entire photo

http://thegrio.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/gold-medal-winners-usa-basketball-2012.jpg?w=560

love and davis are super awkward

love is killing me

that pose/facial hair combo is like every jokey white b boy in every movie/music video ever

"what should i do? point? here it goes!"

iggy and melo prob keeping it most g

definitely. and durant is totes super cool beas.

durant's behavior was hilarious the entire tournament.

Kevin Durant broke the American Olympic scoring record with 156 points, but James could've decided that he wanted the record and gotten it for himself. He controlled these Olympic games the way he controlled the NBA Finals: always the proper blend of pass and score, defend and rebound. He's forever dominant now.
"He's matured incredibly as a person, a player and a leader," Colangelo told Yahoo! Sports. "He never had someone to emulate in his life, and Coach K fit into a great role. He did the rest himself. He's grown so much. So much."

rmde

bron was awesome and saved our asses a bunch of times, dude played point and center in this game like nbd y'all I got this

court has considered gold medal as proper penance for the decision, bron u are free to party

in conclusion U S A-U S A -U S A

westbrooks got a nice digital underground look going in that photo also

and obv pop would be awesome but dude has a vineyard to look after so I think its gonna be doc next

bron should have caught that one dish from a driving paul w/ like five minutes left and torn the hoop down, tho

court has considered gold medal as proper penance for the decision

this seems about right to me, actually. I was feeling really good about bron in London despite hatin on Miami like two months ago.

yeah I will root against the heat forever just because they are the heat but bron in the USA Jersey is my man

^^^^
the silver and bronze were my least desired medal winners, but USA pwning was a joy, and it was tight to feel good rooting for bron

that picture is fantastic, westbrook will never not be someones little brother

paul looking just genuinely happy, kobe exhausted

So is that Harden's right hand sticking into the frame?

cp3 tore his thumb in USA practice, now having surgery