Danny Chau of The Ringer has taken a look at the five teams he opines have the best chance to knock off Team USA at the 2019 FIBA World Cup. He notes that Team USA is still the favorite, but it’s become clear that the playing field is more level than it’s been in a long while.
In Chau’s view, the biggest threat is Serbia, led by one of the top players in the tournament – Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic. USA’s opponent in the 2016 Olympic gold medal game, Serbia has a very tall roster that includes Boban Marjanovic, Nemanja Bjelica, and Bogdan Bogdanovic in addition to Jokic.
In addition to Serbia, Chau lists France (led by Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum, Evan Fournier, and Frank Ntilikina), Greece (led by NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo), Spain (led by Marc Gasol and Ricky Rubio), and Lithuania (led by Jonas Valanciunas and Domantas Sabonis).
We want to know what you think. Will Team USA have trouble with one of the aforementioned teams? Will they win another Gold? With another team not listed above be the surprise of the 2019 FIBA World Cup and knock off Team USA? Please leave your responses in the space below.
I think they’ll win gold regardless if the fact that that other teams are closer to them than before. While they don’t have the top 5 players playing in the World Cup like they usually do, they still have the deepest roster. They will probably have a close game or two, but I think they’ll still pull it out fine.
The Kardashian’s.
Don’t care who wins the world not-so-all-star league. Hopefully Nobody gets hurt.
I don’t think they win it… Well, I hope not anyway, so they take it more seriously in the future and bring their A-TEAM!
I don’t car anything about it, but it is kind of a joke how every is talking about how “weak” Team USA is compared to the rest. Sure there might be stars on Greece, Serbia, and France, but they might have 4 or 5 NBA players at most on the roster. The US has 12 NBA players on the roster. Sure it might not be top-heavy with household names, but top-to-bottom it is by far the strongest roster.
I would have guessed ACL’s and TMZ.
Serbia is probably the best of the rest