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Picking Olympic roster is tough task for US mens basketball
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TORONTO (AP) — In another Olympic sport, the U.S. might be dreaming of a gold-silver-bronze medals sweep.But in basketball, countries only get one.“We could send over three teams, I think we’d be successful,” Golden State’s Klay Thompson said.The Americans are so loaded with talent that their biggest challenge this summer might not be the games themselves, but rather determining which 12 players get seats on the plane to Rio de Janeiro.“I’m sure it’s hard, but it’s a good problem to have,” Clippers star and two-time gold medalist Chris Paul said. “Other countries aren’t that fortunate to have a pool of this many great players to choose.”USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo faced a different problem not long ago.“Someone made the point, ‘Look, you have so many players now, that’s a real problem,’” Colangelo said. “I said, ‘No, it was a real problem when I started in ‘05 when we didn’t have players who wanted to play.’ We were looking for players and now we have a big-time problem because supposedly we have too many.”Colangelo said the selection of this team will “absolutely” be the toughest yet.The Americans list 31 Olympic finalists in their pool, including MVP winners Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and LeBron James,, though James has said he is undecided about playing.