A few close calls in men’s exhibition play may end up having been a bellwether of the struggles to come for USA Basketball at the Paris 2024 Olympics. In all likelihood, it was a group of individuals hitting some bumps on their way to becoming a team — one that was able to find a top gear defensively whenever they truly needed it and whose upside remains higher than any Olympic squad of the last couple decades.
Yes, South Sudan excitement and Germany wake-up call aside, the United States is still the team to beat in the men’s tournament that tips off in France later this week.
The field is crowded behind the Americans, leaving few easy matchups for the four-time defending champions and few missable matchups on the overall schedule. The competition format — where point differential will matter substantially to determine two wild-card teams that advance to the quarterfinals — also makes every moment matter.
As a refresher, the Olympic format is as follows: The 12 teams are separated into three groups. Each group of four plays a round-robin format. The top two teams from each pool after the round robin advance to the quarterfinals, as do two of the three third-place teams, with those wild-card third-place teams being determined by record and, if necessary, point differential. Quarterfinal matchups are then determined by a draw from pots, which are based on record and point differential as well. The quarters, semis and finals then proceed in a straight elimination style.
Strength of group matters. Stylistic versatility matters. Depth, chemistry, familiarity … everything matters in a tournament with so little room for error.
Let’s take a look at how the 12 teams stack up, power ranking style.
1. United States
It was an eventful exhibition slate for the U.S. The Americans lost Kawhi Leonard, have been without Kevin Durant and were nearly upset multiple times, including by upstart South Sudan. Those narrow wins are probably a result of the Americans not being full-throttle yet and figuring out their rotations and so on. Still, a few points of curiosity emerged, including a lack of role for Tyrese Haliburton and a bench offence that can get very iso-heavy. (You can do that when you have the most talent, I suppose.) There is a potential awkwardness with Joel Embiid looking less effective than the team’s other centre options, too. At the end of the day, it’s a team of superstars, All-Stars and stars-in-their-role. LeBron James can still take over games, and this may be his last real chance at a championship. A closing lineup that includes James at the three with Anthony Davis, Bam Adebayo and Jrue Holiday feels borderline impossible to score on. They’re the champions ‘til they ain’t the champions no more.
2. Canada
Is there a dash of homerism in here? Perhaps. It’s a coin flip between Canada and Serbia in this spot, and the choice calls into question the nature of pool play. Serbia is a lock to emerge from its group, while Canada has the toughest and deepest group in the event. We care about absolute upside in a power ranking, though, and if Canada emerges from its group, that suggests the team is playing to what is a very high ceiling. A handful of exhibition games were instructive — they hung with the U.S. until they didn’t, they handled a gigantic France frontcourt and they managed against a pesky Puerto Rico backcourt. There are questions to answer, namely the size of the role of Jamal Murray and the size of the team in general. Canada will have to push in transition and lean heavily on two wing stoppers (Dillon Brooks and Lu Dort) and a nasty defensive bench backcourt (Andrew Nembhard and Nickeil Alexander-Walker). Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is capable of being the best player in any given game. They run deeper than the team that won bronze at the 2023 World Cup. It won’t be easy, but there’s a path to the podium here.
3. Serbia
A well-established basketball nation with arguably the best player in the world in Nikola Jokic, plus a certainty of avoiding the U.S. in the quarterfinals based on how that round will be seeded. It’s hard not to like the way Serbia shapes up entering this event, and games against Puerto Rico and South Sudan, while not gimmies, leave little doubt they’ll at least be favoured to make the semifinals. Serbia’s exhibition schedule was a mixed bag — they looked overmatched against the U.S. and Australia but dismissed Greece, Japan and France — but they’re absolutely the type of experienced group that wouldn’t feel the need to show everything right away. This is a team that Bogdan Bogdanovic led to a World Cup silver medal last summer (Gilgeous-Alexander probably isn’t happy to see Aleksa Avramovic again) and then added a two-time MVP in Jokic. They’re extremely dangerous.
4. Germany
With apologies to the host nation, France, I’m a bit perplexed at the way this group has played out on bookmaker sites. Yes, France has Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert, plus some steady vets you’ll remember, including personal favourite (“a qualifying offer to maintain the restricted free agent rights to”) Nando De Colo. Germany also just won the 2023 World Cup, a larger and more arduous tournament than this one, and they’re returning a good chunk of that core, including Canadian head coach Gordie Herbert. World Cup MVP Dennis Schroder, Franz and Mo Wagner, and a host of complementary pieces (with plus-shooting) gave the U.S. a tough out in exhibition play. The Germans should be safely picked to exit their group, where they’ll, at worst, be a very difficult out in the knockout stage.
5. France
Were it not for the strength of the respective pools, France may slot a little lower. As it stands, their path to the next round requires beating Brazil and Japan — hardly pushovers, but teams that should be neutralized to some degree by France’s size. Wembanyama and Gobert will be tough for any team to score on reliably, and Guerschon Yabusele and Matthias Lessort add considerable size elsewhere in the rotation. The backcourt is a mix of veterans on their last Olympic cycle and lesser-proven players, but there’s enough to like — even before mentioning the home-court advantage throughout the tournament. The exhibition schedule really didn’t go well, and it’s possible this is one Olympics too early for the younger core of the program. While the next three teams may all be better, them all existing in the same group makes it difficult to put any of them ahead of the easier pools here.
6. Australia
Boomers head coach Brian Goorjian referred to their group as “an absolute s—fight” heading into the tournament. Nobody is going to feel badly for Australia, Greece, Spain or Canada, but one, and possibly even two, of those teams will miss out on the quarterfinals. It feels like any of the four could beat the others on the right night. Australia gets a slight nod here due to some pretty solid depth — they cut Matisse Thybulle and still look fine — and balance. They’re probably a piece short behind Jock Landale in the frontcourt, and Dante Exum could miss time with a finger injury. However, Dyson Daniels is a real defensive presence, FIBA Patty Mills is always electric, and guys like Josh Giddey, Josh Green and Joe Ingles add real versatility. Jack McVeigh is a lower-end potential breakout, too. There’s a lot here, and they looked very ready in tune-ups with France, Puerto Rico and Serbia.
7. Spain
It feels blasphemous to have Spain this low, and at the same time, it feels possibly too high. Betting markets really dislike Spain’s chances of advancing past the group stage, and the rock-paper-scissors nature of this group isn’t doing them any favours. Despite Spain’s long run as the world’s No. 2 basketball country, they placed ninth in the 2023 World Cup and sixth in the last Olympics. Between those events, they won the 2022 EuroBasket tournament, and they’ll have import Lorenzo Brown with them for this tournament, which wasn’t the case last summer. That’s a huge addition to a backcourt that had otherwise mostly aged out, as Brown is a tremendous one-on-one player and gives head coach Sergio Scariolo another option to organize the offence and find Juancho Hernangomez, Santi Aldama and others in the right spots. Canada narrowly edged Spain to earn their place here last summer, and the rematch should tell us plenty about where both teams have moved since.
8. Greece
A later addition to the field as one of the four teams earning a last-chance Olympic Qualifying Tournament bid, Greece oscillated between looking terrifying and being a piece or two short. From a matchup perspective, Giannis Antetokounmpo is probably the most difficult player to game-plan for in the tournament, particularly playing when on the other end of Nick Calathes’ pick-and-rolls. Calathes runs a smart and steady ship and quickly learned how to find Antetokounmpo advantageously. Few teams have versatile enough defenders to switch that action and prevent Antetokounmpo from getting a major advantage to attack from. (Canada probably goes Brooks and Dort on those two, in some capacity, to switch where they can.) Greece is also well-coached and should be cohesive after its dominant OQT run. They have good size more or less everywhere. They can be run on, and they don’t crash the offensive glass as much as their size might dictate, but everything that flows from Antetokounmpo at both ends is complicated. They’re placed at the bottom of the logjam here strictly because someone had to be, and they’re arguably the thinnest.
9. Brazil
The FIBA version of Bruno Caboclo is everything I held out hope for so long the NBA version could be. (Arguably, he could be some version of that on an NBA bench now, but I digress.) Brazil had a strong showing at its OQT to earn a spot here and, when healthy, has decent guard play around Caboclo’s (legitimate) two-way impact as a centre in the smaller court. With that being said, Brazil punted on tune-up games between the OQT and Olympics, and they’re a tier thinner than the teams above them here. I think they’re the best of this final tier, and playing to chalk (losing to France and Germany) in their pool should be a bit more favourable than in a pool where the U.S. and Serbia are bigger threats to run up a score. This setup helps Brazil’s chances as a third-place wild-card advancer if they can beat Japan.
10. South Sudan
Consider me a sucker for a good story. There isn’t a ton differentiating nine-through-12 here, except that at least one of those teams is going to make it to the quarterfinals. South Sudan burst into the consciousness with a near-upset of the U.S. in exhibition play. While they’re not going to do that every time out, there is a lot of genuine talent here and a chemistry that flows from general manager Luol Deng and head coach Royal Ivey, which feels bigger than just the games themselves. Former Canadian junior player Marial Shayok, Carlik Jones, JT Thor and personal favourite Wenyen Gabriel are the somewhat familiar names, and Thon Maker is hoping to get late clearance to join as well. Their opening game against Puerto Rico could very well end up as a winner-moves-on situation in retrospect, though both teams will have to be wary of the U.S. and Serbia hanging big point differentials against them for wild-card purposes.
11. Puerto Rico
I went back and forth between them and South Sudan for this spot, something bookmakers are moderately split on. Guard play can go a long way in tournaments like this, and defensive ace Jose Alvarado and Raptors legend Tremont Waters are a pretty good starting point for Puerto Rico. There are some solid international pieces behind that starting backcourt, but only enough for Puerto Rico to be competitive to the finish in one of its four tune-up games. Beating Lithuania to get here remains front of mind, even if it was a lesser Lithuania team than we’re used to. Overall, I split hairs with the good story and more recent strong performance, even in friendly action.
12. Japan
One of the problems with exercises like this is that we’re splitting hairs and someone has to be at the bottom. There’s not a huge difference between Japan, Puerto Rico, South Sudan and even Brazil. At least one of the four will move on, and here I’m drawing a vague line that I think Japan has slightly worse odds against Brazil than a 50-50 Puerto Rico-South Sudan affair. From there, point differential will rule between third-place teams. I’d love to be wrong here and see old friend Yuta Watanabe have another great international moment, possibly in an Aug. 2 game between Japan and Brazil where there is win-and-advance potential once again.
Men’s tournament play begins Saturday. The women’s tournament begins Sunday.