The super stardom of Melbourne-native Ben Simmons has led to increasing expectations on the Boomers chances of winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Simmons is set to join an established core of veterans who represented Australia at Rio in 2016, including Patty Mills, Matthew Dellavedova, Joe Ingles and potentially Andrew Bogut.
The Boomers came perilously close to winning a medal at the Rio Games, falling to Serbia in the semi-final stage, and narrowly missing out on a bronze medal by one point against Spain.
But now the game has changed. Ben Simmons, who has on numerous occasions declared his eagerness to represent Australia, will potentially join other youthful Australians Dante Exum, Thon Maker, Jonah Bolden, Mangok Mathiang and Josh Green in the team for the first time.
Ryan Broekhoff, who has represented the Boomers and currently is playing in Europe, is also a good chance to be on the roster thanks to his elite shooting.
There are more Australian players in the NBA today than ever before, and this increasing depth is set to serve Australia well. Notably, Australia possess great length and size, with Baynes, Maker, Simmons, Exum and Bogut all terrific defensive assets due to their size.
(Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
The Boomers will have good flexibility in the line-ups they can use; realistically they could play four point guards at the same time in a line-up consisting of Dellavedova-Mills-Exum-Simmons-Ingles/Maker/Bogut.
Or, they could have the option of going bigger, with Simmons-Exum-Ingles-Maker-Bogut. Or for more shooting and floor spacing, they could roll out a line-up of Simmons-Mills-Ingles-Broekhoff-Maker.
The Boomers lack a genuine power forward option, so minutes between Baynes, Bogut, Bolden, Mathiang and Maker will probably be shared relatively evenly, and they may look to play smaller line-ups with just one big man on the court.
Simmons flexibility to guard five positions in most cases is set to serve the team well. A problem that could arise, however, is a lack of floor spacing and shooting. Simmons has thrived in Philadelphia in line-ups which consist of world-class shooting. Ingles, Mills and Broekhoff are elite perimeter shooters, while Baynes and Maker have showed improvement over the past season, but other than that, the team lacks genuine outside threats.
(AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Many people assume that America will be the biggest threat to Australia winning a gold medal, but teams such as Serbia, France, Croatia and Spain and are all contenders, and cannot be underestimated.
The public will likely get a good look at the team at the FIBA World Cup in 2019, and an opportunity to see them play live in Melbourne against the United States in two exhibition games. Their performance at the world cup will give us a good indication of how well the team gels together.
For the Boomers to do the unthinkable and win gold, Simmons would have to be Manu Ginobli-like, when the Argentinian star led his team to gold in 2004, defeating America in the process.
However, America is a beast perhaps too strong to reasonably target. That said, the competition for silver and bronze will be tight, and on paper, Australia are as good a chance as anybody.
Jerry
Guest
Get off my lawn.
Jed Lanyon
Roar Rookie
The future of Australian basketball looks exciting! Wonder if Kyrie Irving will ever be seen in a Boomers guernsey too.
express34texas
Guest
Ooh, grammar bully here. And actually it is according to dictionary.com. Oops.
Peter
Guest
"Medal" is not a damn verb! Do you not comprehension?
Swampy
Guest
If we can be in the opposite side of the draw to the USA we would be a great chance to advance to the final with a full strength team. My main concern would be at coach who is way, way below the level of the majority of players. It wouldn't hurt to maybe get someone who has dealt with nba egos before. If we could make a final who knows what could happen? Maybe the USA get popped along the way...
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Certainly, as others have pointed out, you look at it and have to think it's going to be the best Boomers side ever. So they definitely have the chance. So many of those key players are currently quite young and raw but will have 2 more NBA seasons under their belt's by the time the next Olympics rolls around. I would expect Simmons to have significantly expanded his game. He's got high ambitions of making himself into one of the best ever. For that he's going to have to keep working really hard and be better every year. So I suspect his shooting will be several notches better given a couple more years. Maker is still very raw, give him a couple more years and hopefully he just keeps getting better and better. Bogut and Mills are probably the only two main contenders for the team in the part of their careers where two more years is likely to see them tailing off rather than improving. We can't really judge other nations, but if players stay fit and keep growing their games in the way you would think they should, then the Aussies certainly should have a team able to contend with anyone.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Baynes as a central starting figure in his NBA side may reduce the need for Bogut a bit come 2020, but I think Bogut's move to the NBL will do wonders for him simply because the reduced number of games. Only 27 rounds instead of 82 should help with how his body holds together I would think. Most weeks only having 1 game, with the odd week having a second one is much lower intensity than averaging something like 3 games per week in the NBA.
Justin Ahrns
Roar Guru
Yeah I agree mostly. I think Mills has developed more into a SG over the past few years than he used to be, definitely could play that position effectively alongside Ben. The health of Bogut is huge - his rim protection compliments our perimeter defence nicely, as does Baynes.
Justin Ahrns
Roar Guru
Agree on everything aside from Goulding. I'm not sure he gets on the roster unless there are a number of injuries or NBA guys not wanting a game.
Justin Ahrns
Roar Guru
That would be something special for sure!
The Doc
Roar Guru
nice read. no chance against USA. History is a great predictor. We have never won a medal and USA won gold at all recent olympics in my living memory (since 1985) with the only exception being when argentina won. I would be happy if oz got their first medal. I think we have all positions covered - point guards in simmons, exum, mills, delly - perimeter shooting in ingles/wings - Maker/bogut centre rim defence - baynes at power forward. Perhaps slightly unbalanced at no2 position. Simmons/exum/mills/delly all point guards rather than pure scorers. Of that bunch simmons has the greatest potential as im sure he will go to work on his jump shot and perimeter threat over the next few seasons
express34texas
Guest
Not sure about motivation for USA, that's all speculation. You could be right, but could be totally wrong, too. How do any of us know what they're thinking, especially 2 years from now? I'm sure they'll want to win. I think Team USA has only lost 5-6x total ever in the Olympics, and 3 of those were the in the 2004 debacle. SInce then, Team USA has been very organized, not sure where you're getting that they aren't. Now that the world has caught up some, and in a 1-game situation with only 40 minutes and international rules, any team is beatable obviously, but highly unlikely for them to lose.
astro
Guest
Team USA didn't exactly play in Rio without any superstars. Durant, Irving, Thompson, Green, Butler, George and Cousins, all played, with Davis and Curry withdrawing because of injury. Of the top 14 only Harden, James, Westbrook, Paul and Leonard withdrew for other reasons, as did Lillard. They've already named a 35man squad for 2019 and 2020, which is loaded as you'd expect. Devin Booker and CJ McCollum are some of the new faces who might make the cut...
BrainsTrust
Guest
The pressure will be put on Simmons to avoid playing for Australia because he is the key player for his team, and plays a lot of minutes across a season. Delladova is the only other Australian player that has no problem playing a lot of minutes being super fit, The others how fit they are and how they will go playing more minutes in the Olympics versus less minutes in the NBA is a question mark. The stupid thing in Rio was trying to beat the Americans in the group stage, especially with Bogut on one knee. The Serbians saved their energy in the group stages and then mugged Australia in the finals. Old Spain was a better match up for Australia. Ingles in particular benefits from being a secondary threat in the NBA and left open, choked under the Serbian pressure. The USA are beatable because they are not that motivated and organised, but that depends on how much talent they put in their squad to be able to win in second gear.
express34texas
Guest
No chance. It'll be hard enough for them to even medal, though they'll have a solid squad potentially.
J Estey
Guest
Australia is looking like a heck of a team for Tokyo, to be sure! Argentina, Lithuania, Greece, and Spain look to be on the decline, with key players aging. Serbia and Slovenia might be threats... and then there's the USA. Good as this Boomers team will be, if they go up against a Dream Team of, say, Steph Curry, James Harden, KD, LeBron, and Anthony Davis, they would still have virtually no chance. The US would out-talent Australia at every position and still have a massive advantage in depth on the bench with players like Klay Thompson, Oladipo, Kawai, Kyrie, Draymond, PG3, etc. That said, of course, it is unlikely that many of those superstar players will actually play in the Olympics – several will be too concerned about overuse, fatigue, or injury interfering with their next NBA season. If the US team plays without 14 first-choice players like they did in 2016, I could honestly see even the "Dream Team" falling to these Boomers!
SAVAGE
Guest
Agreed.
Ryan Geer
Roar Pro
With a starting lineup most likely of Simmons, Mills, Ingles, Baynes, and Bogut it would have to be the best starting lineup the Boomers would have ever rolled out with. Off the bench, other quality players should include Exum, Dellavadova, Goulding, Broekhoff, Bolden, and Maker with maybe young Josh Green or Mangok Mathiang to fill out last roster spot. This would without a doubt be the best Australian lineup have used in an international competition so if we're going to win gold this is the Olympics to do it.
BigJ
Roar Guru
Miracle on the ice happened in 1980 so why not miracle on the court forty years later??