Can we get some big units from the Congo to become Australian natives? Eg Serge Ibaka's twin brother

Can the AFL not take all our big young athletic talented sportsmen - we need some players, I hear the AFL get all the talent down south

Prerequisite for the team;
1 - have a few players who can shoot 75% from F/T line (we missed so many tonight)
2 - have a couple of 3 PT bombers on the floor (gaze should suit up for rest of Olympics, who cares that he's 50, he can shoot it!!)

Obviously I'm having a laugh... So gutted with the game tonight, I know Spain are gun, but we just had no offense, tough to watch. Hopefully we can turn it around for China.

Ps Exum looks the goods

I still believe AJ Ogilvy can play. dont know why he didnt enter the draft after his freshman year when he was picked to be a lottery pick. He has suffered from injury set backs in the past 2 years. I wouldnt rule him out just yet. I hope Dante Exum and Drmic can develop into really good players. maybe by 2016 Anatoly Bose will improve and would probably be a better pick then Barlow. Would be great if Ben Simmons had a 3 or 4 inch growth spurt and become a dominate athletic big man for us. i heard he was super impressive recently in the US.

Predictions prior to 2016

Daniel Joyce gets drafted no 2 (being realistic) by an NBA team. Dominates, becomes scoring champion 3 years in a row (again being realistic but he could go 4).decides to lend his services to the Green & Gold, whilst only ever going right.

Seriously though, other than the players already mentioned, at this early stage the college players of Motum, Drmic, Greenwood and HS ballers Dante Exum and Simmons would def. be apart of extended squad at least.With Motum and Exum looking the most promising.

getting a coach that can coach a small handful of plays effectively on offense would be a start.

I agree, Curtley - the Spanish seemed to know where to go each time, played as a team rather than as a bunch of individuals, had no trouble finding the easy scoring option, and scored.

Spain had good coaching of good players, playing as a team. We had an NBA coach trying to get us playing NBA ball, which doesn't suit many of the current team.

Hopefully next Olympics we have a better match between coach and players. Either get a Euro-style coach and play a Euro-style game, which seems to suit us better, or keep Brett Brown and pick more college kids to play an NBA style.

drive the fucking ball to the hoops, thats all i can say. See when they have done it late in the game last night.

scrap the national team altogether and lobby for AFL to become a Olympic sport.

Seriously we should only pick players who can committ to a solid pre games lead up and are comitted to a nation team concept. If Dela is the only hope we have in the PG spot then we are in deep trouble. He is going to need to work much harder as a scoreing threat. Bogut will be in a wheelchair by 2016 knowing his luck so dont count on him at all. I think Brown is a good assist NBA coach but in the Olympics he is just crap, we need a coach with solid international expirience who can pull all these individuals together. A Euro training facility is also a must especially if we cant get everyone back home 3 months before the games and worlds.

corey maynard

Hopefully Brown doesn't re-apply for the job cos he's been disgraceful as coach! I'd love to see Lemanis given a shot and then worry about the team from there. No good having a gun team if the coach doesn't use the players effectively or is too scared to mix it up a bit and play some bench players looking for a spark when you start to get down by 10+
A good coach is willing to take a chance and see what might/could happen

What about Kyrie Irving? (unless he wants to play for team USA) i dont see why we cant have him in 2016?

I think we will have a very good balance of players come 2016 should we qualify of course, some of whom should be reaching the prime of their careers.

It is worth noting that I think Australia will benefit from the new FIBA qualification system once it commences...

The below is a summary that Paul put together some time ago about the FIBA changes to their Olympic and World Champ schedule...

- The new Basketball World Cup (to replace the World Championships) will be expanded to field 32 teams
- Qualification to be home and away series (similar to FIFA)
- Calender to run Olympics 2016, zone championship 2017, women's world champs 2018, men's world cup 2019
- Likely to mean that qualification to the Olympics will be primarily through the World Cup

Importantly under the new system of competition, there can be up to 1,600 games played by up to 130 national federations over a period of 18 to 24 months. This is double the number of national teams that are currently involved in the qualifying process for FIBA's leading international tournaments. And for us, this means seeing the Boomers and Opals play regular home and away games every year - something we only get to see against NZ when qualifying for WC's and Olympics.

In addition, as the strength of international teams is based in Europe, often some fo the best teams miss out on the WC's and Olympics due to lack of places. Under the proposed changes, FIBA Basketball World Cup will consist of 32 teams, thereby allowing for good representation for every continent. For example, you could have 12-14 European teams that qualify for FIBA's flagship event. To me this ensures the best of the best which is what the World cup should be about.

LC, will BA be able to afford all those games and all that travel?

With the extra games and possible travel, there will be more expenses. I'm not sure how FIBA is contributing to this either...but I guess with more meaningful Boomers games on home soil, this increases brand awareness, marketability and possibly sponsorship and a media deal of some kind. Whether this brings in significant dollars or not it is too early to tell.

But the major positive is meaningful Australian games frequently - something we have never really had before unlike to the European and South American teams. This can only be good for developing the Boomers squad of players and helping develop a style that better suits our players and talent.

I think next Olympics we need to try and go young and get some International Experience into the 19-25 y/o

Guards:
*Patrick Mills (27)
*Matthew Dellavedova (25)
*Adam Gibson (29)
*Dante Exum (21)
*Hugh Greenwood (24?)

Forwards:
*Joe Ingles (28)
*Mark Worthington (33)
*Brad Newley (31)
*Ben Simmons (20)

Centres:
*Andrew Bogut (31)
*Thon Maker (19)
*Aron Baynes (29)

Starting 5:
*PG = Patrick Mills
*SG = Matthew Dellavedova
*SF = Joe Ingles
*PF = Aron Baynes
*C = Andrew Bogut

I like you're theory Workhorse. I would add Drmic, Broekoff and Motum into the mix as well. All three are versatile players who can, importantly, shoot the basketball!

Not Gibson, not Wortho, and probably not Newley.

Don't forget, we're talking about a Newley four years older and a lot slower