If the top level stars play those teams will all get brutalized. Won't even be close, that said most of the top level stars aren't going to play. The fighting Jokic's seem pretty clearly a step ahead of the other squads.
I agree that if it’s based on talent, there isn’t a question. But like in 2004 I think fit and chemistry can be big, I like Canadian team if they are connecting and Australia defensively will be a big challenge for the US team and yes if Jokic is at his best the hope for Serbia would be to out shoot USA and Jokic to dominate in the post.
Sure, but 2004 wasn't the best talent. In fact, you could almost argue that Duncan was the only player on the US team that would have been on the best collection of talent. And before anyone says anything, Duncan was the only player on the US squad that made any of the All NBA Teams in the 03-04 season that played for the US. He was on the 1st Team that year along with Kidd, Kobe, Shaq, and Garnett, those 4 guys didn't play. The 2nd Team was Cassell, Big Ben, TMac, JO, and Peja (only non-US), none played for the US. The 3rd Team was Metta, B Diddy, Redd, and then Yao and Dirk, again none played for the US. So of the 12 Americans that made an All NBA Team, the only one on the US Olympic team was Duncan. Now there was certainly a lot of talent, but it was either very young (Lebron, Melo, Wade, Amare, Okafor), past their prime (AI), or just good but not great (Boozer, Marbury, Odom, Marion, RJeff).
Looking back now you see all those names and think, how could they lose, but at the time, that team was no where near as good a team as the US could have put together. And I do think just a couple of tweaks and they probably win easily. I think just swapping Kidd and someone like Ray Allen for Jefferson and Marbury, and I think the US wins the Gold pretty easily. They needed a real PG (AI, Marbury were not) and they needed an elite shooter like Allen. Obviously having Shaq on the team also would have shifted things dramatically as even slightly past his prime Shaq would not have been able to be guarded by any of the international teams.
When the top level players actually play, the US is unbeatable. That just hasn't happened all that much since the 90's.