Forget what I or any other pundit says. Here is what Deron Williams said in Manchester, England, last week after the Americans flew across the pond: “We know we can be beat.” It was a statement that was seconded by coach Krzyzewski, along with Britain coach Chris Finch, an American.
That is not lip service. That is the truth – and they know it.
And speaking of American coaches, there is a brilliant one on the other side of the opening round groupings. He is David Blatt, a Princeton graduate, Framingham, Mass. native and the current coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv as well as the Russian national team.
The Russians have Timofey Mozgov, Andrei Kirilenko, future Timberwolf Alexei Shved and ice-water-veined Viktor Khryapa. They defeated Spain in Madrid in the final of Eurobasket 2007 and they have been practicing and playing together for well more than a month, having qualified for London by being the best team at the pre-Olympic qualifying tournament in Venezuela.
The nice thing for the Americans is they don’t have to worry about the Spanish, the Russians or the Brazilians until the elimination round.
Team USA is in the weaker group and is going to be a secondary Olympic story for the first week of the Games – assuming it handles France in the opener. The second and third games are against Tunisia and Nigeria (which has nine American players, including NBA vets Al-Farouq Aminu and Ike Diogu).
Pool play concludes with games against Lithuania (which has already lost veteran center Robertas Javtokas to an injury, leaving Jonas Valanciunas to fend for himself as more or less than only NBA-capable big man on that time-tested team) and Argentina – the only team in the tournament with a New York Knicks point guard, Pablo Prigioni, who will be an NBA rookie next year at age 35.
(For a wonderful anecdote about the 1992 Lithuanian team, plus 19 other vivid recollections from the Barcelona Olympics, this Jan Hubbard column is a must-read.)
Also in the other bracket is China, which will have Yi Jianlian carrying the flag at the Opening Ceremony; Australia, which defeated France rather soundly in a friendly in France before both teams took the train through the Chunnell to London; and host nation Britain, which will struggle to win a single game despite the presence of NBAer Luol Deng and former NBAer Pops Mensah-Bonsu.
That is a measure of how far the rest of the world has come: The worst team in Group B this year has two NBA caliber players, and every team except Tunisia has at least one current and one former NBA player. In total, there are 39 NBA players in the tourney, an all-time record.