Team not thrilled about group at games

Some might think China received a lucky draw at the London Olympics, but the team doesn't agree.

Drawn in Group B with Spain, Brazil, Australia, the third-place team from the FIBA World Qualifying Tournament and host Britain, China would seem to have a better chance of advancing than it would if it had been placed in the pool that features the United States, Argentina and France.

However, coach Bob Donewald said the battle in China's pool will be tough and he would have preferred to be in the other section.

"There are some teams in the other pool that I think we would have a better chance against," Donewald said before the three-game warm-up series against a US squad on Tuesday.

Besides African champion Tunisia, 2004 Olympic gold medalist Argentina is also among the teams that are "not invincible", said Donewald.

"People all talk about Argentina. They are old, I wouldn't mind seeing them," he said. "I think they have good names, but they are old. I wouldn't mind if we see them (in the tournament). Tunisia is in that group, too. I would prefer that one."

Instead, Donewald cast a wary eye over his team's Group B rivals.

"Look at our pool, Spain comes for the gold medal. Brazil will have its entire roster for the first time. They almost beat the US with an injured roster in Turkey. For me, that's a team that can fight for a medal.

"Australia, we know how good they are. And Britain has gotten four NBA guys to play at home. I don't see any easy games."

Spain, the 2006 world champion and 2008 Olympics runner-up, has its sights set on gold with a strong team that includes the Gasol brothers, Pau and Marc, Jose Calderon and Rudy Fernandez.

Revitalized Brazil, with the NBA combo of Nene and Anderson Varejao that missed the 2010 Turkey world championship, will fight for a semifinal berth while the host, which recruited NBA talents Luol Deng and Ben Gordon, will also pose problems for China.

The players are also realistic about the draw, stressing there will be no free passes at the Games.

"There is no weak team at the Olympics, we will have to work extremely hard to survive from this pool," said forward Zhu Fangyu.

Zhu's Guangdong teammate and shooter Wang Shipeng agreed, saying, "The fight will be more difficult than it seems on paper as we are still small on the world hoops map".