2024 Olympics Futures
2020 Olympics Gold Medal Game (Credit: FIBA.Basketball.com)
USA Men’s Basketball Gold Medal (-400)
Let me start off by saying the odds on this are ridiculous and if you don’t want to tail, I have no hard feelings. In all honestly betting $400 to win $100 is a dumb bet, but I’m going to break why I think it is a no brainer.
The USA roster is as follows:
LeBron James (27.5 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 8.3 APG)
Steph Curry (26.4 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 5.1 APG)
Kevin Durant (27.1 PPG, 6.6 RPG, 5.0 APG)
Joel Embiid (34.7 PPG, 11.0 RPG, 5.6 APG)
Anthony Edwards (25.9 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 5.1 APG)
Anthony Davis (24.7 PPG, 12.6 RPG, 3.5 APG)
Devin Booker (27.1 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 6.9 APG)
Jason Tatum (26.9 PPG, 8.1 RPG, 4.9 APG)
Bam Adebayo (19.3 PPG, 10.4 RPG, 3.9 APG)
Tyrese Haliburton (20.1 PPG, 3.9 RPG, 10.9 APG)
Jrue Holiday (12.5 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 4.8 APG)
Derrick White (15.2 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 5.2 APG)
This roster averaged a combined 23.9 PPG, 6.9 RPG, and 5.7 APG in the NBA last season. Their projected starting lineup of James, Durant, Curry, Edwards and Embiid averaged a combined 28.3 PPG, 6.9 RPG and 5.8 APG in the 2023/24 season. I can guarantee no other team in the world is averaging numbers like this, but I bet you already knew that. So let me give you some more selling points.
Based off an ESPN rating on NBA players for the 2023/24 regular season, Team USA has 6 of the top 11 players, and 9 of the top 23 players in the NBA. Also, Team USA’s projected starting lineup ranks Embiid (2), James (7), Durant (9) and Edwards/Curry (22). Next, Team USA has 8 of the top 20 NBA leaders in PPG last season, 3 of the top 20 in APG and 3 of the top 20 in RPG.
You may have read that and thought 3 of the top 20 in both APG and RPG isn’t that great but out of those 17 remaining players 13 are USA players in the assists category and 9 of those remaining 17 in the rebound category. They just weren’t good enough or didn’t fit into the roster.
Lastly, although I talked about how good the talent is on this team they have had some slip ups and performances that have worried me in the last few weeks. They have played five exhibition games and have just one convincing win, a 26-point win against Serbia. Not a great team but they do have Nikola Jokic, arguably the best player in the NBA at the moment. Other than that game they beat Canada by 14, Australia by 6, South Sudan by 1 and Germany by 4. Yes, they are 5-0 but with the amount of talent they have they should be blowing these teams out. I still have faith in this roster, maybe they need to just settle in, but they aren’t dominating teams like they have in previous Olympics.
LeBron, Durant and Curry are coming into the twilight years of their career, but I would take them in their late 30’s over any other roster in the world. Almost forgot to mention that USA has won this tournament in the L4 Olympics. Team USA has the talent to cruise through this tournament just a matter if they can pull it together. The odds suck but based off the research it is something that I am more than willing to pay the price for. GL.
If the odds are too high for you don’t be afraid to use this as a parlay piece to get them closer to even. You can keep this in your back pocket and add it to a two-team parlay as well.
Carlos Alcaraz Men’s Tennis Gold Medal (+130)
Little more value in this bet than the previous one lol, but same premise here. Backing the hottest man on the planet (pause). He may not be ranked as such, only ranked 3rd in the world behind Sinner and Djokovic but in my opinion he is the best player in the world.
Fresh off a French Open win in the beginning of June and a Wimbledon win just a week ago, Alcaraz is playing at the top of his game. He beat Tsitsipas (#9 in the world) in three sets, Sinner (#2 in the world) in five sets and Zverev (#4 in the world) in five sets the claim the French Open title. He also beat Medvedev (#5 in the world) in four sets and Djokovic (#2 in the world) in three sets to claim the Wimbledon title. Carlos has beat 5 top 10 players in his L5 matches and 4 top 5 players in his L4 matches to win two of the biggest tennis tournaments of the year. There is simply no tennis player in the world more in a grove than he currently is.
Something I also want to mention is the Olympic tennis tournament is being played at Roland Garros, the same venue that hosts the French Open. The same venue where Alcaraz just won the title just a month ago. Just in the last month and a half Alcaraz has shown he can beat the best players in the world (beat #1 in Sinner, #2 in Djokovic, #4 in Zverev and #5 in Medvedev) on two totally different surfaces while also beating Sinner and Zverev on clay.
Besides Alcaraz there are three other guys that I feel could have a shot at winning the gold and honestly that’s it. #1 in the world Jannik Sinner, #2 Novak Djokovic and clay court legend Rafal Nadal. Carlos has already beaten Sinner at Roland Garros and has won the L2 head-to-head matchups. Djokovic just got smoked in three sets to Carlos at the Wimbledon final, is recovering from his knee surgery and unfortunately doesn’t look like he is moving as well as he has in the past (which sucks because he is the tennis GOAT and I love watching him play). Lastly, Nadal falls into the same category as Djoker, he is getting older and is also recovering from an injury himself. Only reason I have him on this list is because he has dominated the clay surface better than anyone ever has, winning on this court 14 times and holding a career record of 112-4 at Roland Garros.
I know the law of averages states otherwise, and I don’t like betting the same guy to win every tournament but, in this case, I have to solely due to the fact of how dominate Alcaraz has been the past two months. The guys I mentioned above could give him some trouble, but at the end of the day he is the better tennis player at the moment. It could be anyone’s day at any time, but I like our chances with the young Spainard. GL VAMOS!
