Poll: Could the Celtics beat Olympic competition and win gold?

What's the purpose of a poll if not to get a bit hypothetical. That's exactly what we're doing on this fine Tuesday thanks to ESPN's Brian Windhorst, who yesterday said this...

I mean, is Windy that far off? We just watched for nine months as the C's laid waste to any competition the NBA presented. Sure, talk all you want about the "yellow brick road" that was paved for them through the playoffs, but those squads were still comprised of 15 NBA'ers, each of which possessed at least one star caliber player.

That ain't the case at the Olympic level, but don't think that's meant to disparage the game at the international level, which has grown dramatically in recent years.

There were at least 81 current or former NBA players as part of the 12-team, 12-man rosters that opened the Games. That means 56% of the 144 players in this summer's Olympic field have stepped on the court for NBA game action, a number that was just 22 during the Dream Team's run in 1992, with 11 of the 22 in that tournament representing 11 of the best players in the world on Team USA.

Now, the field is much deeper. Team Canada, facing France currently, features SGA, Jamal Murray, RJ Barrett and seven other NBA starters or key role players. France, Australia, Serbia, Germany and Spain roll out almost exclusively NBA starting-5's.

But Tatum-Brown-Porzingis-Holiday-White, with Al, Hauser, Pritchard and Co. rolling in off the bench is still pretty damn tough to matchup with for any team not wearing the stars and stripes.

How do you think the Celtics would handle if tossed in with the Olympic field?

*And yes, in this scenario, Tatum, White and Holiday would be returned to the C's and replaced with whatever next three stars would be in line to join Team USA.