Paris 2024: Preparations for the Boomers’ Olympic Games campaign to feature match against Team USA
The USA Paris Olympic squad is stacked full of talent and the Boomers are set to face them before the campaign for another medal begins, writes MATT LOGUE.
The path to the Paris Olympics for the Boomers and Opals has been locked in – headlined by a blockbuster men’s warm-up game against a formidable Team USA side featuring future Hall of Famers LeBron James and Steph Curry.
It’s a daunting proposition for the Australian men taking on arguably the strongest American side since Michael Jordan’s Dream Team in 1992, but coach Brian Goorjian has welcomed the practice clash in Abu Dhabi on July 15 as perfect preparation for the Games.
Goorjian is excited about the challenge of taking on a loaded American side, including James, Curry, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid and Jayson Tatum.
“Team USA is as tough as it gets, but it will be very good for us,” Goorjian told Code Sports.
“We also will be getting as much European competition as we can.
“We are trying to get as many games and as tough competition as we can leading into games.”
Goorjian has previously declared that Australia’s group in Paris is potentially the toughest in history.
The Australians have been named in Group A alongside Canada and the winner of two qualifying tournaments in Spain and Greece.
The Boomers face the prospect of Spain and Tokyo Olympic rivals Slovenia joining their group.
In a bid to reach the podium in Paris, both the men and women will play a smorgasbord of practice games across five countries.
The Boomers and Opals take on China in a pair of homecoming exhibition games in Melbourne at John Cain Arena from July 2-5.
The clashes against the Chinese will serve as the final chance for players on both teams to push for a roster spot in Paris.
Once the 12-player squads for the Boomers and Opals are finalised, both teams then head overseas for more warm-up games.
The men will play against Team USA and Serbia in Abu Dhabi on July 15 and 16, before more games in France in the lead up to their first group stage game on July 27.
The Opals’ pre-Paris schedule is equally as busy.
Prior to taking on China in Melbourne, the women will play two games against Japan in Japan from June 18 to 21.
Coach Sandy Brondello’s side also have warm-up games against Spain (July 21), Canada (July 22) and a scrimmage against France on July 25.
The Opals have named a strong 20-player extended squad for Paris, including the legendary Lauren Jackson, who is eyeing her fifth Games.
Over four nights in July, the Boomers, Opals, Rollers, Gliders and 3x3 men and women’s teams will come together for a massive series in preparation for the Paris 2024 Olympics & Paralympics.
BA boss Matt Scriven said the four-day event was a “tentpole moment” in the sport’s major events strategy.
“We’ve got a big events strategy which is working for us and it’s driving so much engagement, commercialisation and connection for the sport,” Scriven said.
“We’re bringing the whole sport together with all our national teams as well as really showcasing what our sport’s about.
“People will be able to go to John Cain Arena and watch a 3x3 game, a wheelchair game and either a Boomers or Opals game.
“We’re going to build events around it. We’ve got our hall of fame, we’re going to do a big green and gold function, there’s a She Hoops function, there are coaching clinics.
“It really is a really great representation of the diversity that exists in our sport, putting it on the world stage, pre-Olympics and Paralympics.”
Scriven said after visits with NBA legend and China Basketball executive Yao Ming, the two bodies were finalising a Memorandum of Understanding that would strengthen ties.
“We’re just about to do an MoU with China basketball around a whole heap of things, games, youth, development and we’ll do some refereeing and coach development,” Scriven said.
“The Opals went to China last year so it gave us an opportunity to get a group of emerging Opals an amazing experience against No.2 in the world and we’re going to do the same thing again in May.”
What are the dreams made of ðŸ’🥇
— FIBA (@FIBA) April 17, 2024
Team USA 🇺🇸 announce a 12-man roster for #Paris2024, ð‹ðŽð€ðƒð„ðƒ with FIBA experience and star power 🤩#Olympics x #Basketballpic.twitter.com/YWFKsm3lLI
‘40, 50 point wins’: NBA star’s warning to world ahead of Paris
Team USA is set to announce its strongest Olympic basketball side since the 1992 Dream Team, with future Hall of Famers LeBron James and Steph Curry to play in Paris in a squad worth a whopping AU$466 million.
According to ESPN, USA Basketball is finalising its 2024 Paris Olympic roster that’s loaded with NBA champions and All-Stars.
The 11-man list is headlined by four-time NBA champion and generational three-point shooter Steph Curry, who will compete in his first - and most likely last – Games in Paris.
Curry will be joined by fellow title winners in James, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday.
In a bid to win a fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal, the Americans look set to also include superstars in Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid and Devin Booker.
The star-studded American side for Paris is arguably the best since the all-conquering Dream Team, a squad featuring Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson that went through the 1992 Olympics undefeated with a winning margin of 44 points.
The talent on show in the 2024 Team USA side recently prompted the team’s three-time gold medallist Kevin Durant to declare: “I want to really make a statement on how dominant our players are. Like 40, 50 point wins.”
The greatest Boomer Andrew Gaze understands Durant’s confidence given the calibre of his star-studded teammates, but he believes the Phoenix Suns forward is delusional if he thinks the US will dominate every team.
He points out that basketball’s best players – Nikola Jokic (Serbia), Luka Doncic (Slovenia) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) currently hail from overseas and the Americans won’t have it all their way in Paris.
“Clearly, the USA has put together a more talented team than what they had in Tokyo in 2021, but to say that you are going to go from that to winning every game by 30 or 40, those days are long gone,” said Gaze, a five-time Olympian.
“Every country now has NBA players. You look at Germany, who just won the gold medal at last year’s World Cup, they’ve got a handful of guys playing on the big stage in America.
“Of course, the US has got some talent that when they get on a roll, things will start clicking and they can blow some teams out.
“But it’s not possible for them to expect to win every game by 30 or 40. It’s just not going to happen. There is too much talent on the global stage now.”
Gaze remembers similar hype surrounding a loaded United States side heading into the 2004 Athens Olympics. The Americans were red-hot favourites led by LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson, but lost in the semi-finals to Argentina in one of the biggest boilovers in Olympic history.
It left the United States fighting for the bronze medal, and while they beat Lithuania in the third-place playoff, the campaign was deemed a devastating failure.
After the disappointment of Athens, the Americans unleashed a potent squad dubbed the ‘Redeem Team’ for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The late Kobe Bryant joined the likes of James, Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Jason Kidd to go through the tournament undefeated, beating Spain in the gold medal game.
Gaze was courtside and remembers the clash being a battle down the stretch, before the Americans held on to win 118-107.
“That USA team in 2008 was just as significant and the games they played against Spain in the finals and it could have gone either way,” he said.
“There were other games along the journey that were tests.”
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