What if: The USSR played at the Olympics?

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a beast -- they launched the first man into space; were a huge World Power; and dominated half the globe up until the fall of communism. Along the way the 'Reds' gave us something to laugh about and made Doug Collins a bitter, bitter man.

After 1991 it all went down hill for the Commies and the once proud, mighty USSR became the states of: Russia (FIBA rank #15), Belarus, Ukraine (FIBA rank #39), Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan (FIBA rank #41), Uzbekistan (FIBA rank #54), Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Estonia (FIBA rank #62), Lithuania (FIBA rank #6) and Latvia (FIBA rank #34). [FIBA rankings are the most recent official ones from after the 2008 Summer Games.] Sure, there is only one nation in the Top 10 . . . but 5 in the Top 50. None of these nations earned a medal at the 2008 Olympics, but these guys can play basketball, let's hypothesize a 12 man rotation for a hypothetical USSR team.

	Name	Country	Team	Ht	Positions	Notes:
1	Sarunas Jasikevicius		Panathinaikos BC	6'4	PG/SG	Former NBA player and current European Point God. 13 ppg, 5.3 apg, 2.5 rpg, 1.3 spg, 1.5 3PTM/game (@ 39%) in the Olympics. Part of the team that beat the USA back in 2004.
2	JR Holden		CSKA Moscow	6'1	PG/SG	American born player and only black guy on this team. Averaged 17.6 ppg, 4.8 apg, 2.6 rpg, 1.4 spg and 1.8 threes a game in Beijing. He gets to the foul line and plays 38.6 mpg in a 40 mpg tournament. Of course, if the Cold War was still on, would this guy even be playing for Russia?
3	Ramunas Siskauskas		CSKA Moscow	6'6	SG/SF	Euroleague MVP 2008 who scored 11 ppg (50% shooting, 45% from three), and added 4 rpg, 1.9 apg, 1.3 spg while doing a lot of the heavy lifting on offense for his club.
4	Andrei Kirilenko		Utah Jazz	6'9	PG/SF/PF	European Player of the Year 2007, former NBA All-Star who can pretty much do it all: 15.8 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 3.4 apg, 2.6 spg, 2.2 bpg in the Olympics.
5	Zydrunas Illgauskas		Cleveland Cavaliers	7'3	C	Did not get permission to play in the Olympics, but that would not be an issue if he was a member of the USSR National Team. He would probably be coerced to play . . . forever!
6	Andris Biedrins		Golden State Warriors	6'11	PF/C	Young guy with good instincts for blocking shots and rebounding.
7	Linas Kleiza		Denver Nuggets	6'8	SG/SF/PF	The fiery heart of this team shot 40.7 3pt% during the Olympics and netted 11 ppg, 4.6 rpg and got to the line 26 times (making 24).
8	Zaza Pachulia		Atlanta Hawks	6'11	PF/C	Stood up to KG in the NBA playoffs, is not intimidated by anyone.
9	Viktor Khryapa		CSKA Moscow	6'9	SF/PF	Former NBA player (Portland & Chicago) who shot 54.3 fg% and 52.4 3pt% on his way to 13.5 ppg. Also had 6.5 rpg, 1.5 spg, 1.0 apg, 0.8 bpg. Made 11 threes in the 4 games he played in China.
10	Simas Jasaitis		TAU Ceramica	6'8	SG/SF	Only got 8.8 ppg, but brought it with 55.3 fg% and 43.3 3pt% (made 13 threes). Contributes in other ways as well, making all of his FTs and getting 3.8 rpg and a few steals.
11	Oleksiy Pecherov		Washington Wizards	6'11	PF	He adds more depth up front for USSR, and can hit the three.
12	Sergei Monya		Dynamo Moscow	6'8	SG/SF	He had a crappy Olympics, but is a former NBA player (Portland & Sactown) who when teamed up with Andrei and Viktor can become a great defensive force.

Alternates: Kyrylo Fesenko (C), Ukraine; Darius Songaila (SF/PF), Lithuania; other guys on the National Teams that I don't know much about; other ex-NBA players from the former USSR who play in other leagues.

Well, the next logical question would be if this neo-USSR team could be a force in international basketball? I think that they could, and they could have surely won a medal at this past Olympics. (Maybe even to the Gold Medal game) The future of this team looks bright even though Zydrunas is getting up there in years, as there are plenty of bigs to fill in the void -- Kyrylo Fesenko (of the Ukraine) looks to develop into one of the better NBA playing Europeans who are above 7 feet tall.

Would this team have a shot against the Redeem Team? They have an obvious advantage inside, but the guards are not very deep . . . this team *could* have an outside shot at beating the USA in any single game, but I wouldn't bet against our boys in a best of 7 match.

Team Russia дерьмо кровать !!!

Game 1: 102 - 61

Greece (2-2) put an Olympic sized beat down on Angola (0-4) and really, Angola is not doing well in this tournament at all. The Greeks shot 58.7 % for the game, while Angola shot 39.1 %. Greece was only up by 1 after the first quarter, but scored 69 points in the 2nd and 3rd quarters -- which would have still beaten Angola by 8. Looking at the box score it was a very dominant showing by Greece -- made even more so by the fact that Angola elected to only play their bench guys significant minutes in this game. For example, Carlos Morais, one of the top scorers in the entire tournament, did not even play a single minute in this game.

Game 2: 95 - 80

According to Google.com, that means sh!t the bed in Russian. And that's exactly what Team Russia (1-3)did getting beat down by Australia (2-2) by 15. Things aren't looking good for Andrei and crew, as they have only 5 points to their names. If they advance they are going to have to face either the mighty United States team or Team Spain -- who may have some unfinished business to help motivate them.

Australia D upped Russia pretty bad, forcing them into shooting 44.4% from the field and causing 16 turn overs. Andrew Bogut and C. J. Bruton both scored 22 for Australia, and won the game in the 1st quarter (27-16), Russia didn't get it going and faced an uphill climb from there. Holden had 20 points and 6 assists for Russia, and Viktor Khryapa finally showed up making all 6 of this three point attempts, while pulling down 9 boards and swatting 2 shots -- he led team Russia with 21. Andrei shot horribly, 1-10 in the game, he made all of his FTs this time around, and still managed 6 boards, 5 assists, 3 steals and a block. If Russia can get their good players to play well in the same game, they can beat any team. So far it has not happened in this tournament. After this type of upset loss, I don't know if Russia can still get back on track.

Game 3: 86 - 73

Lithuania restored order to the universe by knocking Croatia down a bit, the Lithuanians are 4-0 in this tournament and are looking at the podium. Croatia is down to 2-2 and depending on how things turn out in the last of the round-robin stage, may not advance. Croatia was actually up by 4 going into the final quarter, but Lithuania won that handedly (28-11), and did so in a convincing fashion. Ukic, owned by the Toronto Raptors, led his team with 13 points but shot abysmally -- 38.5% (which was still better than what Andrei brought to the table the last two games). Zoran had 11 but only played 16 minutes for some reason. Croatia's torrid shooting from deep finally cooled down, as they went 5/17.

Lithuania's balanced attack continues to roll on, Mindaugas Lukauskis had 20, Kleiza had 18 and Simas Jasaitis had 12. Sarunas Jasikevicius has 6 assists. Lukauskis and Kleiza gave Croatia a taste of their own medicine, going a combined 7/10 from three.

Game 4: 97 - 82

Argentina (2-2) took care of business against Team Iran (0-4) by 15. "Who's your" Ehadadi continues to play well, having a 21 and 16 game. Team Captain MSNB shot poorly, as he was the focus of the Argentinean defense. Hamed Afagh nailed four threes on his way to 19 points. But really, it was the Manu show -- 32 points (71.4 % shooting), 4 threes, 4 assists, 3 boards and a steal and a block. Luis Scola added 20 points and 7 rebounds and 2 steals. Guys like Oberto, Delfino and Nocioni didn't even have to shoot more than 13 entire times because Manu took care of business early.

Game 5: 59 - 55

China (2-2) holds on to win against the German (1-3) team -- proving to the world that Germany is a paper tiger after all. This was a Yao Ming vs. Dirk Nowitzki battle. Dirk had 24 points and 17 rebounds. Yao had 25 and 11 -- but more importantly, the win. China was up by 10 after the end of one. Germany stormed back to hold a 4 point lead at half. China erased that lead with a 20-8 3rd quarter. In the end, Germany did not have enough to pull out the come from behind win, eventually losing by 5. Germany made all 13 of their free throws, and China went to the line 21 times. Hmmmmm. Chris Kaman had 10 and 12, but no one else really showed up for Germany. Yi Jianlian had 9 and 11 for China.

Game 6: 119 - 82

There really isn't much to say about this game . . . LeBron James had 18 / 5 / 8 / 4, and eight guys scored at least 10 points for the good guys. The United States won each quarter 31-22, 30-23, 25-18 and 33-19 and Spain managed to shoot 39.4% for the game. They also were hounded into 28 turn overs. I have a very hard time conceptualizing a way that this, so called, 'Redeem Team' loses this tournament.

Men's Olympic Basketball -- Day 1 + 2

USA 101 - China 70

Pretty much everyone saw this coming, you know, the redeem team coming out and winning despite showing some flaws. All that really needs to be said is that the final score was USA 101 - China 70. The United States had 54 bench points, and if it wasn't for an early three point barrage by the Chinese, this game would have been over much before halftime. The Americans shot 54.3% from the field, had a +3 rebounding margin, +5 on assists, made the Chinese turn it over 18 times and won steals 14 to 2. Yi, particularly, played like ass when it counted. Yao Ming can't do it all by himself. LeBron had 18/6/3/1/3, and was pretty much a beast. Dwyane Wade (off the bench) "was unstoppable" (KOGOD, via Deadspin), and had 19,0,2,2,0 off of perfect shooting (5-5 fg, 7-7 ft). Both bench point guards (Chris Paul and Deron Williams) clearly outplayed Jason Kidd. Kidd played only 13 minutes, but managed to have zero assists and 3 turn overs. He also added 2 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 block. He did not take a shot and did not score. Deron had 9 points (3-7, 1-3, 2-2), 4 rebounds, and 1 assist. Chris had 3 points, 3 rebounds, and 6 assists.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

Boozer (or Betrayal Skull Dude, according to the Cleveland Plan Dealer's interpretation of Chinese  nicknames for NBA players) played 8 mins (2nd least of all Americans to Tayshaun Prince) and managed to get 5 points, 3 boards, 1 assist and 1 steal in that time (shooting 1-2, and 3-4 from the ft line). Michael Redd was great off the bench and hit a lot of threes -- something the Americans will need a lot of, as the rest of the teams are going to zone against the USA.

USA faces Angola on next, and China fights for their lives against Spain -- both on Tuesday.

Russia 71 - Iran 49

The Russian team (that won the FIBA Europe tournament, even beating Spain on their homecourt in the finals) is a good team. They are a good team because they control the tempo of the game and really slow it down and play super defense. After the 1st quarter it was Russia 24 - Iran 5. They only won by 22 points, but they (like the Americans) shot 50% while holding the other team in the 30% range. Russia had a +12 turn over mark, had +9 more steals and did it on defense. We've seen this Iranian team before, and know that they aren't at full strength. They are fast and can catch fire from deep (like the Golden State Warriors, in that regard), they did manage to hurt the Russian zone by shooting 43.8% from deep. (Something the Americans would not be able to do, methinks) That Hamed Ehadadi guy had 9/8/2/1/2 in 34 minutes of action. Mohammad Samad Nikkhah Bahrami did his Iverson impersonation and had 16 points off of 16 shots. This is the Russian defense displaying their ability to play other teams' tendencies against themselves. Andrei Kirilenko did his all around point forward thing by getting 15 (5-7, 1-2, 4-5), 5, 0 assists (surprising!), 1 steal and 3 blocks. Viktor Khryapa and Sergei Monya had bad games, but American born point guard John Robert Holden (or as ESPN thinks, "Kholden") had 19 points, 3 boards, 3 assists and 5 steals.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

Russia faces off Croatia next, while Iran faces the Lithuanian team -- both on Monday

Lithuania 79 - Argentina 75

Manu goes down! Linas Kleiza hit the game winner in this game, making a shot but leaving the Argentines enough time to respond -- but they botched the play while Ginobli (totally out of character) complained to the refs. "It was not a difficult shot . . . I was able to knock it down," (Linas Kleiza,via FIBA.com webpage) said after the game. The NBA players for the losing team all had solid games: Luis Scola had 10 and 6, Andres Nocioni had 15 and 9, Fabricio Oberto had 9 and 11, and Manu had 19 (but he and Noce went a combined 2-14 from downtown). Recently departed Carlos Delfino had 13, 6, 2 and 3 off the bench. Yet they still lost as Ramunas Siskauskas, Robertas Javtokas, Sarunas Jasikevicius (also 8 dimes), Kleiza and Marijonas Petravicius all had 10 or more points in a balanced attack. The Lithuanians (as some Americans have not completely blocked out) are a great outside shooting team and almost shot better from three than they did overall: 40% 3pt to 43.1% fg !!!

Photographed by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images

Lithuania looks to go 2-0 when they play Iran (on Monday), while Argentina faces Australia on Tuesday

Spain 81 - Greece 66

Beatdown city, Beijing, China. This game was supposed to be as entertaining as the Lithuania vs. Argentina game, though this was quite one-sided as Spain exploded in the 3rd quarter to solidify a 16 point lead heading into the 4th. Hardwood Paroxysm took the time to LiveBlog this game, and you can read it here. Spain is just too talented for the Gestalt approach that Greece brings (maybe they need Kosta Koufos after all?), as Pau Gasol, Jose Manuel Calderon, Rudy Fernandez, Juan Carlos Navarro and alternate stars Raul Lopez, Marc Gasol and Jorge Garbajosa are all capable of playing excellent ball. Spain is both big (Marc Gasol), talented (Pau Gasol, Juan Carlos Navarro), fast (Jose Manuel Calderon, Ricky Rubio) or really athletic (Rudy Fernandez). In fact, Spain may be the 2nd best team (on paper) in the entire Olympics. The game would have been much closer had Greece not shot 11-24 from the Free Throw line, or alternatively, if Spain didn't shoot 22-25 from the stripe. I don't even need to go over the stats for this one. Needless to say, Vasileios Spanoulis, Dimitrious Diamantidis, Konstantinos Tsartsaris, and Antonios Fotsis need to regroup and play their style of ball -- ball that has been very successful in previous years.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

 Spain faces China, while Greece will have their hands full with Germany, both on Tuesday

Croatia 97 - Australia 82

Some may suggest that the Boomers awful start (down 14 - 21 after one) killed them, in an otherwise really close game. I, rather, point to the fact that their 2nd quarter showing (down 17 to 26) was much worse. It's going to be hard for Australia to beat any team -- let alone teams that are better than they are, like Croatia -- when their best player (Andrew Bogut) only shoots the ball three times, and finishes with 10 points, 1 rebound and no blocks. The Aussie's still shot 50.8 fg% for the game, but need to learn to play defense -- Croatia worked the ball for good shots and ended up shooting 66.7 fg% for the game, and even shot 12-16 (75.0%) from three. That's never going to get it done. Croatia is a strong squad -- and didn't even bring all of their best players to this tournament. In fact, there are no NBA guys on this team (as Gordan Giricek isn't even asked to play for them, and Zoran Planinic is no longer playing for the shitty US dollar). There will be enough time to say good things about the play of Zoran, Roko-Leni Ukic and Marko Banic during the rest of the games -- lets focus on the bench. Nikola Prkacin (16 points, 5-5 and 6-7), Marko Tomasovic (12 points, 4-6, 4-4 from three) (aka. Marko Tomas) and Kresimir Loncar (10 points, 10 rebounds, 1 three) really brought it for Croatia, and arguably, played better than the three best Aussie starters.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

Croatia faces Russia on Monday, Australia will tip off against the Argentines on Tuesday

Germany 95 - Angola 66

While Angola held tough in the first quarter, Germany exploded for 29 points in the 2nd, and the rout was on. The German twin towers had 24 (Chris Kaman) and 23 (Dirk Nowitzki) respectively. The Rhinelanders were just too big for the quick, but smaller Angolans -- Jan-Hendrik Jagla came of Germany's bench to have collect half as many rebounds (11) as the Angola had all game (22) ... and he did so in only 18 minutes. Germany displayed a very efficient attack (58.6 fg%, 55.0 3pt%), but one wonders just how well they would perform against a larger club (like China or Russia), or a more talented one (like Spain, Argentina or the United States). For Angola, only Eduardo Mingas (think Gilbert Arenas, but shorter) shot above 50%, as he finished with 24 points. The rest of the starters for the FIBA Africa champions shot 5 for 25 combined. That's not going to get it done. I fully expect Olimpio Cipriano, Milton Barros, Joaquim Gomes, Armando Costa and Carlos Morais to play better in the next game. Well, I actually don't. They will play the United States in the next game. Poor poor Angola still hasn't recovered from the abuse Barkley gave them.

Photographed by unknown, FIBA.com

Germany faces off against a hungry Greek squad, while Angola gets to tangle with the USA on Tuesday

Standings!

Group A		Wins	Losses	Points		Group B		Wins	Losses	Points
	Croatia	1	0	2			Germany	1	0	2
	Lithuania	1	0	2			Spain	1	0	2
	Russia	1	0	2			USA	1	0	2
	Iran	0	1	1			Angola	0	1	1
	Argentina	0	1	1			Greece	0	1	1
	Australia	0	1	1			China	0	1	1