Despite my recommendation to get on Brazil for Olympic football gold being met with a
gonna give it another go with the basketball tournament.
Been scouting round for some value. Obv USA will win the gold, they're miles better than everyone else so looking at the top three betting. There's two teams of 6 with the top 4 going through to the last 8.
In the quarters, the winners of group A play the fourth-place team in group B. That means USA against hopefully not Brazil, they should be good enough for a top three place in their group, so USA avoided. If Brazil finish second or third in their group as I expect, they will play second or third in group A, who will probs be Argentina or France. Brazil are third faves in their group and that could be crucial, because the second placed group B team will play USA in the semis. If they come third in their group, Brazil are in the other half and wouldn't play USA til the final. I think the main danger of killing this bet is Brazil doing better than expected and coming second in their group and facing USA in the semis.
In the other half, I expect Spain to win group B and win their quarter, so if Brazil do come third in their's, it could come down to being able to beat Spain in the semis for Brazil to medal. If they don't, they get another chance in the bronze medal match, against maybe France or Russia.
Off the top of my head, can see the quarters looking like this: A2 (Argentina) v B3 (Brazil), B1 (Spain) v A4 (Lithuania) , B2 (Russia) v A3 (France) , A1 (USA) v B4 (GB), would then leave Brazil v Spain and France v USA.
Argentina are ranked above Brazil, but are aging, and crucially for the bet, the two teams played in a warm-up tournament earlier today, Brazil winning by 16 points.
I've scouted some team news, Brazil have the positive of having Anderson Varajao back, he missed most of the season with Cleveland but is fully fit. There's a lot of negatives for other teams - Spain are without arguably their best player, Ricky Rubio. His absence will be felt, they have a lot of good bigs but Rubio is their star playmaker. Australia have lost their only good player, Andrew Bogut, and are no chancers without him. France without Joakin Noah (their second best player).
Brazil have four decent NBA players, Varejao, Tiago Splitter (San Antonio), Leandro Barbosa (Indiana), Nene (Washington). There's a few teams with a decent NBA presence too tho, France, Spain, Argentina etc. Brazil also have an American ringer, Larry Taylor, as a bit of a wildcard.
It's a bit of a flier to get them to top 3 (they are 7th favrouites) but defo think there's some value in them at 13/2. Brazil play USA in a warm-up on Monday, price might be affected by that, but in reality they should probs lose by 30 so unless they get really close or lose by 60 (as Dominican Rep did last night) it shouldn't make much diff.
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