This team is ready.

The real tournament starts Saturday, when the Americans will face Puerto Rico to open up Group D action. And with all due respect to Carlos Arroyo, Yao Ming, and (insert Slovenian superstar here), but the real test for Team USA isn't in the preliminary round. It's in the knockout stages, where the team will first likely meet Turkey or Lithuania, and then either Germany or Spain or France or Serbia. When it's down to eight teams, that's when the team has to perform at or near its peak to win.

And that's exciting. Yeah, the Dream Team was great. But you knew Angola and Australia had no shot. There was no drama. (Well, except for wondering if Christian Laettner would get into the game. Always a crapshoot.) There's going to be drama in early September. Whether it's self-inflicted or caused by a team on a roll (Spain), a young team finding itself (France), or the defending gold medalists asserting their will (Argentina), it'll be something we don't typically get out of international basketball.

Here are my predictions for the tourney. The top four teams from each group make it to the knockout stage, and I've listed them in the order I think they'll finish. After that, it's pretty self-explanatory. The pairings for the knockout rounds can be found here.

losers bracket. Okay, what the hell. Brazil beats Japan, China beats Germany, China beats Brazil for 5th. Germany beats Japan for 7th. And Turkey beats Spain in the third-place game.

The best game of the prelim round will be Spain v. Germany, unless France gets its act together and puts up a fight against Argentina. (They had better hurry - this game is Saturday.) In the round of 16, I look forward to possible matchups between Germany and France, and Brazil and Puerto Rico. If the semifinals end up as I predict, that will be some damn exciting basketball. Hell, even the third-place game would be awesome!

Let's hear your predictions in the comments.

I want to begin by thanking all of you for your support. We had a challenging season and our fans have stayed with us throughout. Our primary goal this year was to establish our philosophy and develop a foundation that we can build on for the future. Our philosophy of team basketball with hard work, discipline and community involvement has been accepted by most of our players and all of our staff. We're not where we want to be in this crucial area, but I am pleased with the progress that we've made and I'm very encouraged about the attitudes of our young players. Our team and staff have been very active in the community, and we will continue to be committed to help our young people in every way possible.

On the court, we certainly struggled at times, and we've had many issues to deal with. We have not shied away from any of our issues and have dealt with each one.  Some of these issues are ongoing and are not solved over night. We continue to work on those. Despite these challenges, we made progress this season. While it may be difficult to see on the surface, we have laid the groundwork for a good foundation. Sam has instilled a style of play that is exciting to watch. Our point production was up 14.3 ppg over last year. Our assists are up and our turnovers are down. Our field goal percentage is up from .418 to .444, our 3-pt percentage is up from .356 to .385, our FT percentage is up from .750 to .774.

We had some tremendous wins this year against some of the best teams in the league. We beat the world champion Detroit Pistons, the former champion San Antonio Spurs, and the Eastern Conference leader Miami Heat. Who will ever forget the magical night when Donyell Marshall tied the league record for 3 pointers and our team set the league record for 3 pointers in a victory over Philadelphia?

Through adversity and some very tough losses, our players and coaches never gave up. We always bounced back to compete hard the next game. We certainly have some major deficiencies in the defensive and rebounding areas, and we will certainly address those areas in the offseason. Improving our defence and rebounding will be one of our major objectives for next year.

We have some young players that we are very excited about for the future of this team. Chris Bosh had an outstanding season and with his continued hard work, we feel that he's a future all-star. Matt Bonner was one of the surprise rookies in the league this year and was very valuable to our team coming off the bench.  He's a restricted free agent, we have the right to match, and we will make it a priority to retain him for the future. Rafael Araujo did not have the year that we anticipated, but he's a very hard worker and we still believe in his potential to be a contributor to this team. Pape Sow was able to get some playing time down the stretch and showed the potential that we saw when we drafted him in the second round. Like Matt, Pape is a restricted free agent that we will seek to retain. We have some solid veterans to help our young players along.

Rafer Alston admittedly had some areas to work on, but he has worked hard to improve his game and we feel that he was the most productive of the free agent point guards that were available to us (Derek Fisher, Troy Hudson, Carlos Arroyo, Brent Barry).

Jalen Rose had an outstanding season increasing his shooting percentages in all areas and averaged 3 ppg more than the 03-04 season. Mo Peterson also increased his shooting percentages in all areas and increased his ppg by 4.2, while giving us a consistent effort at the defensive end. Loren Woods is still a developing player but had some big games for us this year, and proven veterans Eric Williams, Aaron Williams and Lamond Murray are all capable of making contributions to our team next year. Alvin Williams continues to work hard to come back from knee surgery and we'll know his availability before the season begins.  Donyell Marshall and Milt Palacio had solid years for our team and could certainly help us next year, but both are unrestricted free agents. Until the draft, trades and free agency are evaluated it's too early to determine if we'll retain them.

This draft will be extremely important for our basketball team. It's not a draft that has a lot of instant stars, but it is a draft that's deep with potential. With two first round picks and two second round picks, we have the resources to add some young talent to our team or help facilitate trades. We really beefed up our scouting department this year adding a Director of NBA Player Personnel, a Director of International Player Personnel and another European Scout. I am leaving shortly for two weeks of scouting in five different countries in Europe. Our coaches have designed comprehensive offseason development programs for each player, and we anticipate major improvements with everyone.

When I took this job last June, I said that it will take three years to get this team turned around. This season has been invaluable for our staff in that we now know all of our players inside and out, and we know what our strengths, weaknesses and needs are for the future. We have an outstanding company in MLSE, and my staff has learned how to work with the experience and resources we have to help build our team. Most importantly, we have learned what a great city Toronto is and what great fans we have. We know that the fans deserve a winning team that plays basketball the right way. We are committed to developing a team that will make our fans proud.  Now that we know where we are, we can move forward with a specific strategic plan. Over the next two months I will be sharing with you portions of that plan as well as information on the draft and trade process.

I am very excited about the future of this team and I want to thank all of you again for your support as we continue to grow.

The Jazz have proven one thing this season. Andrei Kirilenko is the life and blood of the team. After picking up Carlos Boozer fresh off his betrayal of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Jazz were thought of as a team ready to make a run at the top of their division, or in the very least, a playoff spot. 

Well, Kirilenko went down early to a knee injury and missed a few months of actions. The team couldn t take up the slack for AK47 and quickly faded away, which was very unlike any team coached by Jerry Sloan. Sloan has a history of running systems that take advantage of every individual skill available to him from his players, but no system was able to make up for the scoring, rebounding, defense, and hustle the Russian can bring. 

Boozer himself has been questioned by the team owner himself recently. The owner made remarks questioning Boozer s heart and ability to step up and lead when his team most needs him. This is quite the hit. 

The Jazz also found themselves with a revolving door at the point guard. They started the season with the newly re-signed Carlos Arroyo on the injured list, who suffered an injury against the Knicks in the preseason. The team still had Keith McLeod who performed very well in the first couple of weeks and then saw his play time reduced. Raul Lopez has been playing the bulk of the minutes lately, and Arroyo was traded to Detroit after having some small run ins with the coach and landing firmly in the doghouse.

For a Sloan coached team to have the season it s had, even now that Kirilenko has returned to the lineup, is surprising to say the least. 

The Jazz have a serious lack of consistency at the point guard and have no depth to think of up the middle. Aside from Boozer taking consistent minutes, there is no one else who is cemented in for sure minutes. Even Mehmet Okur who was signed as a free agent has seen spotty play, maybe because he is not a pure rebounding post player since he likes to step out for jump shots. 

One thing is for sure. The way the team has played this season seems right if you break down the personnel, but you would never have thought that at the beginning of the season, especially because Jerry Sloan wouldn t allow something this bad to happen. 

Count On: Andrei Kirilenko
Best Addition: Carlos Boozer
Rookie To Watch: Kris Humphries
Spark Plug: Raja Bell