The USA men's basketball team will kick off its 2016 gold-medal pursuit in Rio de Janeiro on August 6, taking a dozen of the NBA's biggest names into international competition.
Though the list of notable holdouts—LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard and Chris Paul—is riddled with megastars, there's still an unreasonable amount of talent among the dozen players who agreed to make the trip.
Rather than just rank these guys based on their 2015-16 NBA performances, we'll organize them in order of predicted impact for Team USA. The international game is different, and both the style and competition level mean the best objective players might not necessarily figure most heavily into the team's success.
Certain skills will matter more, such as raw physicality, which bodes well for DeMarcus Cousins.
In addition, as the U.S. tries to leverage its unmatched versatility on defense, multiskilled forwards such as Draymond Green figure to be major catalysts.
Everybody is good on this roster; that's no great revelation. But some talents will make a greater impact than others.
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Article written by Grant Hughes
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