The Brazilian national basketball team’s last hurrah is a chance at Olympic glory on home soil

Brazilian basketball has never had a golden generation. The country won a pair of FIBA World Cups (then known as World Championships) in 1959 and 1963, but its best Olympic showing is bronze over 50 years ago. For a country with a deep, rich history of passion for basketball — another sport that, like the beloved soccer, looks graceful in its purest form — Brazil is still searching for the group that’ll make history.

For a time, it looked like Brazil had potentially found those players. During the late 2000s, the country saw the rise of a team full of NBA-caliber players that was capable of rivaling just about anybody this side of Team USA. Leandro Barbosa, Nenê, Tiago Splitter, Anderson Varejão, Marcelinho Machado, Alex Garcia and Marcelinho Huertas helped put Brazil basketball back on the map. They did it while playing a fun, exciting style fitting of a nation known for its flare.

Now the Brazilian team enters the 2016 Olympic tournament as host, trying to finally win a medal for the first time since 1964. Unfortunately, the odds are against this team. They’re not considered one of the favorites to win a medal, let alone give the U.S. a fight for gold. After spending the last decade rising to become one of the world’s best national teams, they’re grown old without much left in the pipeline. Thus, a transitioning group enters Rio as a long shot to end its Olympic dry spell.

For guys like Barbosa and Nenê, however, winning in front of their home crowd wouldn’t just end the drought. It would be the perfect highlight for a generation of Brazilian players that’s never been golden, but deserves to be remembered anyway.

It’s important to consider Brazil’s history with basketball, which dates back to its first Olympic appearance in 1936. Led by coach Togo Renan Soares from 1951–71, the team became one of the best in the world, regularly challenging the Americans in major tournaments during the middle of the 20th century. Soccer is king in Brazil, but basketball has long been one of the country’s favorites.

But as Team USA left everyone in the dust over the past two decades, Brazil’s program sputtered. In South America, Argentina’s “Golden Generation,” led by Manu Ginóbili and Luis Scola, overshadowed everyone else. Brazil missed three straight Olympics from 2000–08 until a group led by Barbosa, Varejão, Splitter, Machado, Huertas and Garcia started making waves.

After the nadir at the 2006 World Championships, where Brazil finished 19th (its worst result ever), good things started happening. At the 2007 Pan American Games, the team went 5-0 and won gold. After missing out on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the team won gold at the 2009 FIBA Americas tournament. A disappointing 9th-place finish at the 2010 World Championships didn’t stop Brazil from booking a trip to London in 2012.

The 2012 Olympics were likely Brazil’s best shot at glory with this group. They had loads of NBA talent and were coming off another strong showing (silver medal) in the 2011 FIBA Americas. However, the team ended up finishing fifth after a bitter loss to longtime rival Argentina in the quarterfinals. The U.S., Spain and Russia would go on to win the medals.

It may seem like there’s more opportunity with Spain and Argentina looking weaker in 2016, but the same can be said for Brazil. Injuries have taken Varejão and Splitter off the team and sapped Nenê of much of his athleticism. Barbosa remains the star and showed in the NBA Playoffs that he’s not done yet, but at 33 years old, he may not be capable of carrying a team through the Olympics now. The Brazilians are still relying on an aging Garcia and not much else on the wing, leaving them vulnerable against any teams with perimeter scoring.

If there’s any hope, it’s that the next generation of Brazilians has been underestimated. Utah Jazz guard Raul Neto and Chicago Bulls big man Cristiano Felício are both on the roster, and they both look like future building blocks for the program. Felício is coming off a breakout year in the NBA and got the nod for the national team in July when Varejão backed out. Maybe we’ll remember Rio as another step in Felício’s unexpected rise to prominence. Young Raptors forward Bruno Caboclo is another name to watch, although he’s not on the roster for Rio.

Still, the odds are clearly against Brazil here, and it’s unfortunate for a group that has such a special opportunity. Breaking the Olympic drought on home soil, with Barbosa, Huertas, Garcia and Nenê leading the way, would be a truly special accomplishment. With the next Olympics four years away, this is the last hurrah for a team that’s left a real imprint on international basketball. Going out with a medal is unlikely, but you can bet the party in Rio would be amazing.