Rio Olympic Games 2016: Boomers’ golden ambition unites Australia’s basketball stars
BOOMERS coach Andrej Lemanis says the ambitious team goal of winning Olympic Gold has driven the squad to greater heights in the lead-up to the games.
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BOOMERS coach Andrej Lemanis says the ambitious team goal of winning Olympic Gold has driven the squad to greater heights in the lead-up to the games.
With Rio less than four months away, Lemanis revealed Boomers’ bond has become closer thanks to a vow from the side to create history and claim our nation’s maiden medal.
The Australian mentor believes the squad’s pledge is now benefiting the attitude of the Boomers taking part in the NBA finals, including Patty Mills, Matthew Dellavedova, Andrew Bogut and Aron Baynes.
“We sat down as a group and spoke and part of that was establishing our goal to go and get the gold medal,” Lemanis told The Sunday Telegraph.
“Everybody else wants the gold and it’s easy to say that, but it’s about making the commitment and driving your behaviours to support that.
“We believe we are good enough to do it and I think we’ve seen that drive manifest itself in different forms and one of the most obvious ones is the NBA-based Australian Boomers catching up over the All-Star break earlier this year.
“That was done on their own accord just to spend some time together to reconnect because they felt that was important for the Boomers.
“We’ve also got guys doing very well in the NBA finals and that’s just the attitude rubbing off.
“It just continues to shine the light on how well our players are doing on the international stage.”
The Boomers will start their preparations for Rio on July 5 when they assemble in Melbourne for a team camp and a number of practice matches against local sides.
The final 12-man squad for the Olympic campaign will be announced on July 11, before they fly to Argentina on July 20 for a two-game tournament against Lithuania and Argentina.
They will then move to Sao Paulo, Brazil for a three-game tournament in the lead-up to arriving in Rio on August 1.
Lemanis believes practice matches against some of world basketball’s biggest nations will only benefit the Boomers at Rio, where the Australians face a tough test with world champions the USA and China in their group.
“It’s something we identified after the 2012 Olympic campaign was the need for quality lead-up games,” he said.
“In Argentina we play against some big sides and in Brazil we’ll play Brazil, Lithuania and China.
“We will certainly get some good competition against those teams.”
Boomers assistant coach Luc Longley failed to win an Olympic medal from three attempts during his illustrious career, so he is hell bent on helping the current crop create history in Rio.
“I suppose the selfish motivation is that I never got a medal,” Longley said.
“I came fourth at two Olympics and seventh at one.
“Fourth is a hard spot to come in a pre-medal competition, so there is certainly an incentive for me.
“I’d really like to get into the medals just once.”
Personal desire aside, Longley genuinely feels the Boomers have a realistic chance of competing with the world’s best at Rio with an established team full of NBA talent.
“I think there are a lot of moving parts and a lot of variables, but in my mind there is no reason why we can’t compete for a medal,” he admitted.
“We’ve just got to get everybody healthy and all over there in good shape and in the right mindset.
“I think the group is going really well and a lot of the players are performing well, not just the NBA guys.
“Players like Ryan Broekhoff over in Europe and Chris Goulding has been shooting very well for Melbourne in the NBL.
“There are a lot of guys getting around, so we have the ability to perform very well at Rio.”
BOOMERS GROUP AT RIO:
1- Qualifier 1
2- USA
3- VENEZUELA
4- Qualifier 2
5- CHINA
6- AUSTRALIA
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