Geoff JohnsonThe USA basketball men’s team is the solid favorite to leave London 2012 with the gold medal, but after seeing what Argentina brought and knowing that Spain is also a substantial threat, the bet doesn’t look that easy to make.
“I love it. You hate to breeze through exhibition games, and then you get into London, and then you start getting competitive,” U.S. forward LeBron James said. “So we have a very good team. It doesn’t matter about how many points you win by, you just want to play well and get better that night, and I feel like we got better tonight.”
“It’s tough. Argentina’s a very good team, very tough-minded,” Kobe Bryant said. “They continue to play hard, and for us it was a big challenge to try to put the game away, we could just never do it.”
The USA Team has one big, Tyson Chandler, but he is a defensive guy, who doesn’t deliver much offensively, and that could means trouble against Argentina and Spain.
Argentina has Luis Scola, who plays in the NBA and is unstoppable most of the possession, but Manu Ginobili is as smart as any of the other USA team members; perhaps the depth of the bench will be the issue.
Spains, on the other side, has the Gasol Brother and Sergi Ibaka inside the pain; that could be a real chaos for Mike Krzyzewski’s team eventually.
Odd To Win Gold Medal- Moneyline
1001 USA -900
1002 Spain +500
1003 France +1500
1004 Brazil +2000
1005 Argentina +2000
1006 Australia +10000
1007 Great Britain +15000
1008 China +35000
1009 Tunisia +200000
