Olympic gold rush begins for USA, Canada basketball; Pacers add Cole Swider to roster battle
The Olympic basketball tournament moves to quarter-final action on Tuesday.
Tyrese Haliburton and Team USA are on the opposite side of the bracket from Andrew Nembhard and Team Canada as the final eight teams move on to quarterfinal action.
Nembhard remains a key reserve for the Canadians who will face a France at 12:00 p.m. ET. The French squad has been inconsistent but always have a ton of length with Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert in direct contrast to a Canadian team fueled by their dynamic guards.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and RJ Barrett have been strong and with the defensive toughness of Lu Dort and Dillon Brooks in the mix, Canada can make any team uncomfortable. Canada will need a solid lead down the stretch to make sure the refs don’t have a say in the outcome.
Haliburton is not a key reserve for Team USA, but will always remain ready should the USA squad need to add him to the mix. The Americans play Brazil at 3:30 p.m ET on Tuesday, following the Canada/France tilt.
Jrue Holiday missed the game against Puerto Rico, and will return for bracket play, but Haliburton remained the last man off the bench, essentially playing the ‘victory cigar’ role in the blowout win over Puerto Rico.
The winners on Tuesday advance to the semifinals on Thursday with the gold and bronze medal games slated for Saturday.
Pacers add Cole Swider to roster
The Pacers added a little more competitive juice to the preseason by signing sharp shooting forward, Cole Swider, as Shams Charana reported. The one-year deal is not guaranteed with little room remaining on the roster. However, there’s always room for a shooter and Swider can certainly knock down shots which will always be valued by the Pacers with their approach to offense.
Swider is prepping for his third pro season after two years with little NBA time under his belt. He played 7 games for the Lakers in his rookie season (2022-23) and 18 games with the Heat last season. Swider only played over 10 minutes in two games last season, but made 7 of 13 threes combined in those two opportunities to get some extended run.
The 25-year old played 14 games with Sioux Falls in the G-League where he made half of his 3-balls on 9.4 attempts per game. Whew! He continued splashing threes throughout the summer, making a bit under half of his threes for the Summer Heat, including 45% in the Las Vegas Summer League. The Heat won the the Vegas championship and Swider pitched in 19 points off the bench, making 5 of 8 threes in the title game.
So, yeah, the guy can shoot it.
I’ve seen him listed anywhere from 6’8 to 6’10, but he’s not a long, defensive minded player despite his size. If he were, he would be locked up on a big contract somewhere by now. Regardless, there’s no harm in seeing how Swider fits with the Pacers system at both ends of the floor.
Depending on the type of contract, Swider may be in line for an assignment to the Mad Ants or the final two-way deal with the Pacers. If things go even better, he could fit into the 15th spot on the main roster. That would require releasing Kendall Brown whose contract is also not guaranteed. So the competition at the back end of the roster will be as interesting as the battle in the middle for rotation minutes.
Swider, Brown, Oscar Tshiebwe and Enrique Freeman are all in the mix for either the final roster spot or a two-way deal. There’s also the possibility that the Pacers could free up a spot by releasing James Johnson until things shake out later in the season and they need JJ back on the bench.
Regardless of how it plays out, I love the move of adding a different type of player to the mix and putting the full roster on notice that the team’s brain trust is not satisfied running it back and affirming that they are continually looking for any way to improve and make everyone in the mix earn their role on the roster.
Incredibly, preseason camp begins in a couple of months with some of the players, including Bennedict Mathurin, Obi Toppin and James Wiseman, getting work in at the St. V’s Center already.
Won’t be long…