This summer, the USA Basketball senior men’s team and other top national basketball teams around the globe head to China to compete in the 2008 Olympic basketball competition.
Team USA are clearly a favorite, and on paper the top favorite, but as we know from past international basketball competitions, many other countries put together some extremely effective squads who play very well together. But LeBron James today made a loud, clear statement. The Akron Beacon Journal (Marla Ridenour) reports:
When questioned by an international reporter, LeBron James guaranteed a U.S. victory in the 2008 Olympics in Bejiing. ”We will win. We’ll be Olympic champions this year,” James said.
Asked why he was so confident, James said: ”I think we have a great coach in (Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski) who allows us to do what we want to do as long as we abide by some of his rules. Then we have leaders and guys who don’t want to lose. We have a guy like Jason Kidd, who has not lost in FIBA sports his whole life. He’s like 30-something and 0. ”We’ve got Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard that hold down that starting lineup and guys coming of the bench who are going to be good for us, Dwyane Wade. We’ve got so many players, it’s going to be unbelievable. It’s going to be hard for us to be beat.”
InsideHoops.com will provide full previews and coverage of the summer’s competition.
Euroleague.net reports: Another solid all-around game gave one of the highest-rated performers all season the Week 1 Euroleague MVP award in the Top 16 – even if he would have preferred a victory for his team. Lynn Greer of Olympiacos scored 26 points on 5-for-7 two-point and 7-for-8 free-throw shooting, but couldn’t prevent a 67-75 home loss against Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv on Thursday. Greer added 2 rebounds, 5 assists, a steal and 10 fouls drawn to amass a performance index rating of 31. Following him with the second-best performance this week was Drew Nicholas of Efes Pilsen, who paced his team to a major 74-64 home win against Panathinaikos. Nicholas scored 29 points, making 6 of 7 two-pointers and 5 of 12 three-pointers to go with 2 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals for a 29 index.
A gold medal and MVP honours at EuroBasket 2007 and another strong showing for club side the Utah Jazz all add up the FIBA Europe Player of the Year Award for Andrei Kirilenko of Russia. The 2.09m forward takes home the prize after winning a vote of both fans and a panel of basketball experts, media and coaches from 25 different countries.