2024 Olympics - General commentary

crote said:
How certain are we that this was a high level of competition? FIBA ranks Great Britain 52nd in the world. (South Sudan is 33, for comparison.) They didn't qualify for the Olympics, and I'm not sure they were particularly close. I'm not a Euroleague savant by any means but none of the names on the GB roster jump out at me. Anyone in a position to say whether Team GB is a step up or down in competition compared to what Khaman faced in BAL?
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Of the names in the box score, the only one that stands out to me is Wenden Gabriel, who went to Kentucky and now plays for Maccabi Tel Aviv. They're a major Euroleague team. He plays on South Sudan and had 5 pts and 8 rebounds.

I looked up the other players and all play for various leagues. Shayok, who led South Sudan is scoring, plays in China. Hesson, who led Great Britain, plays in Japan. Akin, their second leading scorer, plays in Turkey.

We'll have a much better idea of the talent difference on Saturday, but I still believe this is a cut above Division I. These are all players quite a bit older than Khaman who play professionally and have had some success. I remember a number of years ago Duke traveled to Europe and had difficulties with Belgian teams who didn't even play in the top flight.

As I understand, Khaman is a hard worker and has been improving his game tremendously. These games should give him a good idea where he needs to be so he can work towards those goals at Duke.
 
kirispupis said:
Of the names in the box score, the only one that stands out to me is Wenden Gabriel, who went to Kentucky and now plays for Maccabi Tel Aviv. They're a major Euroleague team. He plays on South Sudan and had 5 pts and 8 rebounds.

I looked up the other players and all play for various leagues. Shayok, who led South Sudan is scoring, plays in China. Hesson, who led Great Britain, plays in Japan. Akin, their second leading scorer, plays in Turkey.

We'll have a much better idea of the talent difference on Saturday, but I still believe this is a cut above Division I. These are all players quite a bit older than Khaman who play professionally and have had some success. I remember a number of years ago Duke traveled to Europe and had difficulties with Belgian teams who didn't even play in the top flight.

As I understand, Khaman is a hard worker and has been improving his game tremendously. These games should give him a good idea where he needs to be so he can work towards those goals at Duke.
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Oh yeah, to be clear, I meant none of the names on GB jumped out at me. South Sudan has quite a few familiar names. Besides Gabriel, there's Marial Shayok (UVA and Iowa State), Carlick Jones (Louisville), and JT Thor (Auburn and the Hornets). They are much more brand name than the Brits (as their FIBA ranking attests).

No doubt all of these guys are pros, and older than Khaman. But I believe that was also the case in Basketball Africa League, where he played previously (and quite successfully). I have no clue how BAL talent stacks up against the collection of British guys he just faced.
 
Phredd3 said:
As will I, although I did find it surprisingly hard to get information any other way about Olympic rosters. Does anyone know when the official deadline is/was for the rosters to be final? And is there a clearinghouse for that final version?
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FIBA for the most part keeps this up to date with preliminary and final rosters when federations announce them:
www.fiba.basketball

Roster Tracker: Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament Paris 2024

PARIS (France) - The countdown continues to the FIBA Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament Paris 2024 and national federations from the qualified competing nations have started announcing squads and rosters.
www.fiba.basketball www.fiba.basketball

On FIBA's end, the roster does not have to be set until the final meeting held at some point on the day before the tournament, but my understanding is that there are sometimes logistical hurdles within national Olympic committees and with the event itself that most teams will be locked in before that.
crote said:
Oh yeah, to be clear, I meant none of the names on GB jumped out at me. South Sudan has quite a few familiar names. Besides Gabriel, there's Marial Shayok (UVA and Iowa State), Carlick Jones (Louisville), and JT Thor (Auburn and the Hornets). They are much more brand name than the Brits (as their FIBA ranking attests).

No doubt all of these guys are pros, and older than Khaman. But I believe that was also the case in Basketball Africa League, where he played previously (and quite successfully). I have no clue how BAL talent stacks up against the collection of British guys he just faced.
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I would consider it a surprise that South Sudan could not win by more. The British team has some of their better players, but is also missing a lot of guys that might be familiar to college fans in Gabe Olaseni, Sacha Killeya-Jones, and Luke Nelson from recent competitive rosters. The better players on those BAL teams would probably be the best players on this team, but the rest of the British rotation is probably a little bit stronger than BAL bench players and the weaker starters.
 
The Brits were beating up on Maluach, who was game but was typically overmatched by the physicality of the game. The good news to me is that NCAA play is not typically quite so physical.
 
Khaman looked reasonably well out there. His defense is farther along than I expected. He is competent on the perimeter and will probably improve once he stops going for steals. The physicality did not seem to bother him on the interior. He altered a ton of shots and blocked a few. What impressed me most was how vocal he appeared on defense.

It was tough to assess his offensive abilities since the guards never met a shot they didn't love. He touched the ball three times near the rim. The first he corralled a dreadful pass that was behind him and at knee level in traffic. That ended up in a turnover. The second he got an offensive rebound and was fouled on the putback. He made both free throws. The third he went up for an alley-oop and the guy passed it to his forehead.

While the boxscore lists 3 3pt attempts, the last attempt happened when he was hot potatoed the ball late in the shot clock. He threw up a long three to avoid a shot clock violation. His first attempt looked good. His second was an airball.

GB did not look like a very good basketball team, but a surprisingly good rugby squad. I would WAG that their talent level is between FSU and GTech from last season.
 
A report from Zion O on twitter, one of the best Duke follows out there and a personal friend of mine --

https://twitter.com/x/status/1814359967157104698

Sounds like Khaman's D is well ahead of his O at the moment. That is not a problem for me. If he can give Duke 15+ mins of elite rim protection and a lob threat on offense then this team is going to be more than fine with that. Not entirely different from what we got from Lively two years ago.
 
Oh, I forgot to add that I have been told that there is pretty much no question that Khaman does make the SSud Olympic team. Duke does not expect him to be back on campus until mid-August.

That Ball Durham article was utter trash... par for the course for them.
 
In what might be the biggest shocker of the summer, the NCAA has put out a useful bit of research, creating a dashboard of student-athletes participating in the 2024 Olympics, which you can filter by conference and school. So, if you wanted to know what events and what countries have ACC representation, you could do that. (The answer is a lot, as we've added 51 from Stanford and 39 from Cal.)

Use the tabs at the top to produce lists of athletes and coaches with NCAA ties. Duke currently has 1 coach (Kara Lawson, assistant coach of USA Women's Basketball 5x5) and these 18 athletes:

BASKETBALL

Elizabeth Balogun, Nigeria
RJ Barrett, Canada
Chelsea Gray, USA
Khaman Maluach, South Sudan
Jayson Tatum, USA

FENCING

Pascual di Tella, Argentina

FIELD HOCKEY

Leah Crouse, USA

GOLF

Ana Belac, Slovenia
Celine Boutier, France
Leona Maguire, Ireland

SOCCER

Toni Payne, Nigeria
Quinn, Canada

TRACK & FIELD

Daniel Golubovic, Australia
Simen Guttormsen, Norway
Lauren Hoffman, Philippines
Brynn King, USA
Morgan Pearson, USA
Madeline Price, Canada

Reddit already posted a breakdown of Olympic athletes by school. Duke is 13th overall, 3rd in the new ACC:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1814146994530898041
 
One thing that's interesting to me in the above and similar lists is that the U.S. university NCAA establishment is more and more becoming the "Olympic training grounds for the world." That is, a lot of foreigners come to study in the U.S. to be able to gain access to elite coaching/competition etc. while being able to continue to pursue academic studies. This is rare among the world. Other countries do certainly have robust Olympic sports training in different areas (e.g. China for table tennis, gymnastics etc.) but those are basically ALWAYS a separate "track" in life separate from anything academic in nature.

Due to this, it seems like many NCAA sports are getting more and more foreign athletes -- soccer comes to mind as the prime example we've seen, but has been occurring in tennis, golf, others for quite a while....Of course, in the Duke list above, many of those individuals grew up/live in the U.S. but have some connection to another country that allows them to represent it. But we do see an increase in foreign high school athletes coming to the U.S. for college for NCAA participation/preparing for the Olympics in various sports/events. And without the university-sponsored Olympic sports "training ground" there'd be a lot of athletes facing a tougher choice and/or some other entity would have to pick up the slack (which may occur somewhat with how collegiate athletics are moving).
 
Solid consensus that Khaman is going to be a monster and drafted in the top five, or maybe not and he's something of a project with a number of deficiencies. Clarity.
 
A couple meaningless thoughts:
First, the Olympics cannot come soon enough…I am desperate for something positive to watch on TV!
Second, I love the Noah Lyles ad on TV….he talks about how he feels at the start of the race, and then there comes a point when his competitors start to slow down. He thinks to himself, “I am not about to slow down…I’m about to get faster!”

Let’s go USA!
 
budwom said:
Solid consensus that Khaman is going to be a monster and drafted in the top five, or maybe not and he's something of a project with a number of deficiencies. Clarity.
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Both can be true - he could be drafted in the top 5 while also having some deficiencies that will take time to overcome.
If his main issue is strength (which is how I interpret "has to grow" and is supported by "finishing through contact") then that's the easiest thing for an NBA team to fix.

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UrinalCake said:
Both can be true - he could be drafted in the top 5 while also having some deficiencies that will take time to overcome.
If his main issue is strength (which is how I interpret "has to grow" and is supported by "finishing through contact") then that's the easiest thing for an NBA team to fix.

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Well, I tend to think that “project” and “monster” are mutually exclusive. But yea, a monster can still have deficiencies. Zion wasn’t a great outside shooter, but he was definitely a monster.

Re KM, I think that Lively part two is a decent projection.
 
brlftz said:
Re KM, I think that Lively part two is a decent projection.
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Let's slow our roll on that a little bit. Lively's elite ability to switch onto guards and stay connected to them is a lot of what made his D so special. There's just no way Khaman has the lateral movement or quickness in his feet to do that. Now, his absurd length may help him not get completely abused all the time on switches, but if he gets caught in a switch that can be a problem for Duke in a way it simply was not when Lively was our rim protector.

Worth noting that Khaman brings a bit more physicality than Lively did, so he has that working for him.
 
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