The United States squad heading into the Basketball World Cup in China this summer is going to be good, but between the myriad of players who have turned down the opportunity to suit up for the squad and the perpetually decreasing gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world in the sport, winning the tournament for the third time in a row might be a bit difficult.
One country that has aspirations of knocking off the Americans en route to wining it all is Serbia, and in fairness, they have one heck of a squad that is capable of doing some fun stuff in China. Final rosters are still some time away, but NBA players like Bogdan Bogdanovic, Nemanja Bjelica, Boban Marjanovic, and All-Star big man Nikola Jokic could all make the cut, along with ex-NBAer and EuroLeague legend Milos Teodosic. It also helps that their head coach is awfully confident in what would happen if they were to meet up with the reigning champs.
National team coach Sasha Djordjevic spoke about a showdown with the Americans on Serbian television and, thanks to a translation from EuroHoops.net, we learned that he believes the United States would need an assist from a higher power.
“Let’s let them [Team USA] play their basketball and we will play ours and if we meet, may God help them,” Djordjevic said, with EuroHoops.net noting that he had a “semi-serious tone.”
Hell yes. The semi-serious tone thing might throw things off a touch, but Serbia wanting to get into a winner-take-all game against the United States and throttling them makes a bunch of sense. Each of the last two major international tournaments have seen the two sides face off with a gold medal on the line. The U.S. has won both occasions, a 129-92 thrashing at the 2014 World Cup and a 96-66 mauling at the 2016 Olympics.
With the American roster featuring less firepower than in either of those years and Jokic at the center of things, it makes sense why Serbia would be confident they could get revenge this time around. We have reached out to the Lord for comment on if He would help the Americans should the two sides meet up and will update this post should we get a response.
