SECAUCUS, NJ, September 5, 2007 -- The FIBA Americas tournament is over and the United States, thanks to 10 blowout wins by an average of 39.5 points, has its ticket to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics.

Before we move on to the 2007-08 NBA season, it's time to look back at what we've learned over the past month and what's left to be determined before the Olympic Games begin next August.

Argentina is even stronger than we thought
They showed up in Vegas without Manu Ginobili, Andres Nocioni, Walter Herrmann, Fabricio Oberto, Pepe Sanchez and Ruben Wolkowisky. That is six of their top eight players from last year's World Championships.

Yet, they still won every game except the two they played against the U.S., taking the silver medal and the other automatic bid to the Olympics. Led by tourney MVP Luis Scola, the Argentines sent a message to the world. If they're at full strength, they are a deep team.

Last year's Bronze Medal Game starters were Sanchez, Ginobili, Nocioni, Oberto and Scola. If they start again next year, Argentina has Herrmann, Carlos Delfino, Wolkowisky and Pablo Prigioni (a point guard who made an impact in Vegas) coming off the bench.

That is a stacked team right there.

Let us not forget...
There are three teams that are clearly ahead of the rest of the world. They are the United States, Argentina and last year's World Champions, Spain.

Spain won the Gold Medal Game in Japan without Pau Gasol. Now, their best player is healthy again and they're off to a 2-0 start in Eurobasket 2007.

With a backcourt of Jose Calderon and Juan Carlos Navarro, along with Jorge Garbajosa and Gasol on the frontline, they have the ability to beat any team in the world.

The Rest of the Field
Here are the 12 teams who have qualified or will qualify for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing:

2008 Olympics Qualifying Team
1. Host China
2. 2006 World Championships winner Spain
3. 2007 FIBA Africa winner Angola
4. 2007 FIBA Americas winner USA
5. 2007 FIBA Americas 2nd place Argentina
6. 2007 FIBA Asia winner Iran
7. 2007 FIBA Oceania winner Australia
8. Eurobasket 2007 winner*  
9. Eurobasket 2007 2nd place*  
10. 2008 Qualifier  
11. 2008 Qualifier  
12. 2008 Qualifier  
*If Spain finishes in the top two spots at Eurobasket, then 3rd place would receive an automatic bid to the Olympics (since Spain has already qualified).

The last three spots are held open for the top three finishers at a pre-Olympic qualifying tournament which will be held next July. There are 12 teams in that tournament as well:

Pre-Olympic Qualifying Tourney Team
1. 2007 FIBA Africa 2nd place Cameroon
2. 2007 FIBA Africa 3rd place Cape Verde
3. 2007 FIBA Americas 3rd place Puerto Rico
4. 2007 FIBA Americas 4th place Brazil
5. 2007 FIBA Americas 5th place Canada
6. 2007 FIBA Asia 2nd place Lebanon
7. 2007 FIBA Asia 3rd place Korea
8. 2007 FIBA Oceania 2nd place New Zealand
9. Eurobasket 2007 3rd place*  
10. Eurobasket 2007 4th place*  
11. Eurobasket 2007 5th place*  
12. Eurobasket 2007 6th place*  
*If Spain finishes in the top six spots at Eurobasket, 7th place would qualify for the Olympic qualifying tournament.

The Olympic field is slim. While there were 24 teams at last year's World Championships, there will be only half as many in Beijing. So, some good teams will be staying home.

After the top three, the next tier of teams probably includes France, Greece and Italy. But there are several others with solid (and dangerous) squads when they're at full strength.

Favorites?
Earlier this morning, in recapping the FIBA Americas event, Bill Walton told some of us here at NBA.com HQ that "not a single player from another team in Las Vegas would have even been asked to try out for the U.S. team." And, if you consider the entire world, there are probably only a handful of non-Americans who would be invited to training camp if they were to acquire U.S. citizenship.

But having the biggest collection of individual talent doesn't win you anything. That talent has to play together and play hard. Team USA did just that in their domination in Las Vegas, but they will need to be even better to bring gold back from Beijing.

The improvement needs to start on the defensive end. At times, the U.S. was brilliant defensively, but at other times, they weren't. They gave up 100 points to Mexico and allowed their opponents to score 25 or more points in a quarter 10 times.

Bringing Shane Battier back into the fold could certainly help, but it's more about team defense, the guards and bigs working together to defend the screen and roll and being ready to help when your teammate gets beat.

But let's see what the roster may look like next summer. If healthy, the following players are pretty much locks to make the team...

PG: Jason Kidd
SG: Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Michael Redd
SF: LeBron James
PF: Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh
C: Dwight Howard, Amare Stoudemire

Because of the success they had this year and the idea that roster consistency will provide a better team dynamic, you would think that Jerry Colangelo would want next year's roster to be very similar to the one that just won gold in Las Vegas. But Wade and Bosh can't be kept off the team, and it would also be hard to deny either Elton Brand or Carlos Boozer as a fourth true big.

Chauncey Billups probably has the upper hand over Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Kirk Hinrich as the second point guard. And the final roster spot could go to a role player like Battier or Tayshaun Prince instead of a third point.

Still, there's bound to be injuries that will prevent one or two of the above from participating, so even the "locks" are written in pencil at this point. But using the 2007 roster as a base and building from there is a good way to construct a team that can take home gold in Beijing.