the Olympics allowed NBA players for the first time in '92 which led to the Dream Team magic bird and MJ but a nightmare 12 years later the US was overconfident we've got the best players we could just throw a team together and win gold easy but the rest of the world was catching up after two group stage losses Argentina took down the mighty USA in the semifinals so Tim Duncan Allen Iverson and young LeBron got bronze no one thought that was possible before the Olympics and that exact same thing is happening now no one can beat this USA team LeBron KD Steph at his first Olympics LeBron's planning his big sendoff yeah I'll finish this career out with another gold medal what if he loses part of the only two Olympic teams to not win gold oh no and think of the pressure if the US wins no big deal we expected it if they lose there will be major questions about the future of USA Basketball the rest of the world features players like Nicole yic on Serbia janisan tuno on Greece a stat Canada Rudy goar and Victor wanyama on France but not enough people are talking about Germany yeah their only NBA players are Dennis shuder fron and mo Vagner Daniel TY but they just showed what teamwork and physicality can do beating the US in the world cup but minutes after the US finished fourth LeBron James reacted to a post saying imagine if the US reclaimed Glory with a Dream Team well that's exactly what LeBron planned to do he got on the phone and started recruiting the best American players and his sales pitch got a lot easier when American Sprinter Noah ly questioned the NBA's dominance over basketball remember this I have to watch the NBA finals and they have world champion on their head world champion of what the United States don't get me wrong I love the us at times but that ain't the world that is not the world we are the world we have almost every country out here fighting thriving putting on they flag to show that they are represented there ain't no Flags in the NBA oh American players did not like that KD said somebody help this brother Booker and Damen Lillard couldn't believe it but then when Germany beat the US in the World Cup oh hell no pretty soon Superstars started committing to the Olympics and it's not just LeBron forming The Avengers 2024 will be in Paris one of the most glamorous cities in the world everyone wants to play there the time zone is much better than the last Olympics in Tokyo and Co isn't a big issue anymore there are lots of reasons to be on this roster but the comp competition is insane there's only 12 spots the first roster announced Steph book Aunt hiy Drew holiday LeBron Kawai KD and Jason Tatum and centers Joel embiid bam matab bio Anthony Davis but Kawai had to leave the team so who gets in the obvious choice Jaylen brown but they chose his non Allstar teammate Derek white instead first of all imagine how good your team has to be to deny the finals MVP every other country would be ecstatic the US is like oh you know we don't think you're a good fit at this time thank you for applying and look Derek white is a good player but how do you not need the finals MVP well Jaylen Brown's Got a Theory 5 hours after white was announced Brown tweeted hey Nike this is what we doing accusing Nike of shutting him out see back in 2022 the shoe company dropped Kyrie Irving after he supported an anti-semitic documentary and brown defended his teammate saying since when does Nike care about ethics and whenever he wears Nikes on the court now he physically removes the swoosh logo but how could they keep him out of the Olympics easy Nike is one of the biggest sponsors of Team USA Basketball Derek white happens to be a Nike athlete which brings their total to nine players on the roster including Jordan brand Adidas has ant under arour step Joel and beid Sketchers of course is it confirmed no of course it's not but it's a very interesting conspiracy theory still the US is stacked but how does the world stack up well first we have to look at the logistics of how the Olympics actually work there are 12 countries that make the tournament they're broken down into three groups the top two countries get out of each group group a Australia Canada Greece and Spain Group B is France Germany Japan and Brazil Group C Serbia South Sudan us and Puerto Rico Group Play will actually be 2 hours outside of Paris in a city called Le from July 27th through August 4th The Knockout round is August 6th through the 11th in Paris now this is the oldest roster the US has ever sent they're from a time when America dominated basketball from 1956 to 1993 the MVP went to an but in '94 hake alijan from Nigeria dominated the League this man won MVP defensive player of the year the finals and finals MVP in one season the next International MVP was Steve Nash 05 and 06 then Durk in ' 07 but the US took back control there wasn't a non-american in the top five for MVP 11 straight years except Tony Parker in 2012 but everything changed in 2019 19 the world has dominated and the next guy who should own the league Victor wanyama from France but there's one big problem when it comes to the Olympics it is true that the world is catching up individually but as a group it's no contest the US just has too much death and I'm not saying that non-nba players on these other countries are scrubs but look at the USA's bench against Canada before the Olympics LeBron's staff Drew holiday Deon Booker and embiid were replaced by hie ant Jason Tatum ad and Bam that's not even to mention Kevin Durant the starters were down 11 to1 against Canada the bench retook the lead 28-23 in all the US bench outscored them 4227 compare that to the' 04 nightmare Olympics team they had only two AllStars from the last year on their entire roster Tim Duncan Allen Iverson then when the team got trouble the coach Larry Brown didn't trust his young guys who happened to be LeBron dwade and Carmelo the situations are not the same what they should be scared of is next Olympics in 2028 we can count out LeBron Steph KD at least the US will probably lean on guys like ant hle Jaylen Brunson Zion Williamson John Morant Cooper flag but at these Olympics if the world could put a team together against the us then it would be possible that's what they should do to fix the NBA Allstar game but since the stars on the other countries are all separated onto different teams there's no chance the US loses even a single game their biggest competition is probably France they're playing at home which means a lot in the Olympics in Tokyo they barely lost to the US to get silver 87 to 82 and they didn't even have wimy back then but the us right now is too talented and too deep to not win gold one guy who completely failed on that World Cup team was Brandon Ingram in fact it devolved into a huge beef with Warriors and US coach Steve Kerr and now not only do the Warriors not want Brandon Ingram in a trade the Pelicans don't want him and neither does any other team in the NBA