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.

Thought I’d throw up a special weekend column, since I’m not sure I’ll have one for tomorrow since it’s a holiday and all. Before we get into the situations to pay attention to, I thought we should check in on some of the centers who recently won starting jobs and were popular pick ups over the past couple weeks. I expressed skepticism about all of them for various reasons, and for the most part it looks like it was pretty well-founded.

Francisco Elson: 7.8/6.7/0.6, 0.7 steals, 1.1 blocks, 55% (31-of-56), 28.9 mpg in 9 starts

Ike Diogu: 9.4/4.5/0.9, 0.1 steals, 0.6 blocks, 62% (28-of-45), 24.1 mpg in 8 starts

Eddie Griffin: 6.6/6.0/0.7, 0.4 steals, 2.6 blocks, 0.3 3s, 43% (24-of-56), 22.4 mpg in 9 starts

I know that centers are tough to come by in deep, two-center leagues, but there’s still just not a lot of value up there. Elson is the only one getting acceptable minutes, but even his 29 per game might be considered a disappointment considering that not just Marcus Camby, but also Kenyon Martin, has been out for the majority of those nine games. He’s doing about what I expected him to do – basically a Rasho Nesterovic impersonation – and while he’s not been an embarrassment, those who were hoping for 12 and 8 with close to 2 blocks per game just had unreasonable expectations. Diogu has proven to be a stud in FG%, but if he can’t be on the court enough to take even 6 shots per game, he won’t be able to help you all that much. He’s nowhere close to an asset in any other category. As for Griffin, have more typestrokes been unnecessarily wasted on a single player?

Three Situations to Pay Attention To
Los Angeles Lakers
After just writing about how much space has been wasted writing about Eddie Griffin, it seems pretty silly to follow that up by writing about Kwame Brown. As much as we want to call Griffin a disappointment and a tease, it doesn’t even begin to compare to Kwame. But there seems to be a recent shift in Kwame’s game and might be making him a more reliable – if one-dimensional – fantasy option. In his fifth season in the league, Kwame has shown an extremely limited offensive game. His touch around the basket hasn’t developed at all, and while his jumper looks decent at times, he’s never been able to hit it with any consistency. Phil Jackson seems to have realized that – and maybe Kwame has as well – and isn’t asking Kwame to score. Last night’s 18-point “breakout” game was the first time since Nov. 14 that Kwame attempted 10 shots in a game. He’s been recast as someone who’s main duty is to attack the boards, especially on the offensive end. Brown averaged 1.9 offensive boards per game in November, 2.5 per game in December, and is up to 3.3 per game so far in January. The fact that many of his shots are coming off these offensive rebounds is helping his FG%. In six games since re-entering the starting lineup, he’s shooting 54%. Here’s his overall line in those six starts:

8.8/8.2/1.0, 0 steals, 0.5 blocks, 54% (21-of-39)

It’s pretty comparable to most of those “hot” pickups listed above, but without that secondary category to help out in. Although Brown has no steals in those six games, that’s the one category he’s most likely to offer some help in. He averaged nearly a steal per game while seeing 30 mpg in 03-04, which is pretty decent for a big man. If he remains in the starting lineup he could average somewhere around 0.8 steals and blocks per game, which isn’t spectacular, but isn’t terrible. Expecting any consistency from Kwame is probably pretty foolish at this point. A game like last night’s is still the exception, not the rule. But if he can keep pounding the boards and converting some of those putbacks, he might be able to emerge as something better than just another Reggie Evans.

Indiana Pacers
Let’s take a look at Jeff Foster’s line so far in January:

7.3/9.4/0, 0.4 steals, 0.4 blocks, 61% (22-of-36)

Again, not too different from the lines of those Elson/Diogu/Griffin group. Foster is quite similar – and the exact opposite – of Kwame Brown. Like Brown, he seems to be a one-category helper who is pretty consistent in that one category, but doesn’t have much of a shot of helping out elsewhere. Unlike Kwame, Foster seems to be getting the most out of his talent while Brown is getting only a portion. Foster’s upside is extremely limited – he will not score, he will not get blocks. But if you want a boost in rebounds – and only rebounds – he is probably one of the best guys you can grab. I’m not at all a fan of one category specialists because they leave you with holes in too many other categories, but situations get dicey sometimes, especially at center. I thought I was in the perfect situation earlier this year with Yao Ming and Rasheed Wallace, with a very capable backup on the bench in Brendan Haywood. Then Yao went down and Haywood became completely ineffective right around the same time. I ended up dumping Haywood, because he just wasn’t worth using. Since I’m in a daily changes, cumulative roto league, I decided to simply take the beating at center and go way under my projected games limit rather than try my luck with the dregs available on the waiver wire. My strategy is to use quality games when you have them. Right now I have a lot of point guards playing well, so I’ll go over the projected pace there and make a trade from there at a later date, even if it means not getting the best return. But in weekly H2H leagues, this strategy doesn’t work. So guys like Foster might be the best option available. And if you’re strong in blocks thanks to non-centers like Andrei Kirilenko, Shawn Marion or Paul Gasol, Foster can at least give you the boards you need from a center. He’s averaging 9.9 rpg in his last seven contests, and that’s in just 24.4 mpg. With Jermaine O’Neal iffy, he might see even more time. Foster’s no savior, but at least you know what you’ll be getting.

Dallas Mavericks
Did someone in your league pick up DeSagana Diop yesterday? It happened in my league, and I’ll admit I was about to make the move myself and was beaten to the punch by about five minutes. I’m not going to lose too much sleep over it, but man, I sure could have used that help in blocks. There’s no denying that Diop is a blocks machine – he’s second in the league blocks per minute, averaging 2.0 bpg in just over 17 minutes, which is rather ridiculous. But the big question is this – even with his ascent to the starting lineup, how much more playing time will Diop actually receive? In last night’s game he saw just 20 minutes, although it’s hard to read too much into that since the game was over early and Adrian Griffin was the only player in the game to play more than 30 minutes. One of the many problems with Diop early in his career was his total lack of conditioning, and while he’s gotten better, it’s hard for someone to start consistently playing more than he ever has and to do it at a high level. This is Diop’s fifth season in the league and he’s played more than 30 minutes in a game a grand total of two times. This is one of the same arguments I made against Al Jefferson even after he joined the starting lineup and he hasn’t broken the 30-minute mark at all in 8 starts. Avery Johnson hasn’t given up on Erick Dampier yet, and this could be one of those old-fashioned “motivation” benchings, although it might take more than that to motivate a guy who’s going to get paid $53 million over the next five seasons no matter what.

Some people want to think of Diop as a poor man’s Ben Wallace, but a homeless, penniless Ben Wallace might be more like it. Like Wallace, Diop can help out in steals; he averages 1.3 steals per 40 over his career, which isn’t bad at all for a center. Unfortunately, he also shares Big Ben’s inability to put the ball in the basket. While he’s shooting 45% this season, he’s a career 37% shooter. And it would be a miracle if he could ever get his FT% up to 50%. While he won’t shoot nearly enough in either category to hurt you too much, it’s still worth noting. The Mavs are an extremely deep team. They don’t need to have a center out there at all times, as they can get by with Dirk Nowitzki at the five for stretches. The Mavs need Diop to be at his most energetic whenever he’s out there, so it’s probably not in their best interests to have him out there for 32-35 mpg. Grab him, stash him, start him if you need him, but if there’s one lesson that his column should make you realize, it’s that finding serious help at center on the waiver wire is almost always more fantasy than reality.

Comet Gain
Chris Kaman – Wow. Just, wow. Not only a top center, but a dominant overall force the past couple weeks. Might not last when Elton Brand returns, but he’s looking more and more like a legit #1 center.

Samuel Dalembert – Like Kaman, not just a top center lately, but an absolutely dominant force. He’s not missing – including from the line – and he’s swatting away everything in sight (which unfortunately for the 76ers means many obvious goaltends). His 37 mpg so far in January is huge for a center.

Ben Wallace – The old Big Ben is back; 13.8 boards and 2.7 blocks so far in January. Now about that 29% from the free throw line in that span…

The Hold Steady
Rasheed Wallace – Has slowed down a bit, his rebounding leaves a lot to be desired from a C, but he’ll keep raining in those 3s and getting the blocks.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas – He’s staying healthy, he’s hitting his shots, and is more than respectable on the boards and in blocks. A steadying force in the middle.

Brad Miller – A couple of down games recently, but he’s still one of the top 30 or so fantasy players in the league.

The Fall
Shaquille O’Neal – You knew you were punting free throws; but 15/10 with just 1 block per game in January leaves a lot to be desired.

Brendan Haywood – Back in the starting lineup after a two-game absence, but still too inconsistent to be counted on.

Joel Przybilla – Nothing more than a blocks specialist now that Theo Ratliff is on a run of good health.

I’ll do my very best to answer any relevant big man questions in the comments here, so feel free to ask away on guys not mentioned (or mentioned) here.