The 2024 Olympics are here. And 12 nations, headlined by LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Team USA, are ready to compete for a gold medal in basketball. But they are, of course, far from the only country with star power.
The 1992 Dream Team faced just nine NBA players, while this year's USA squad is heading to a tournament that features over 60 . And some of those stars from around the globe could make as much noise as the Americans during group play. Bold predictions for players from all three groups can be found below.
Franz Wagner's jumper became a pretty common topic whenever he came up during the 2023-24 NBA season. Forget the fact that he probably had his best season in just about every other aspect of his game, few could look past the 28.1 three-point percentage (and yes, that's a bad number).
But Wagner was a solid shooter over his first two seasons, when he hit 35.8 percent of his triples. And he should be motivated to have a strong tournament for his home country, after missing most of Germany's run to gold in the FIBA World Cup last year.
With a little extra focus and Olympics stakes, Wagner's jumper will return to form, giving him a little momentum heading into next season. It looked like he was starting to fit in on this star-laden team by the end of its run of friendly games, but there's still a bit of a stylistic clash between Joel Embiid and the rest of Team USA (and international basketball, in general). Embiid is one of the best scorers in the world, but he's.