Boomers "rolling the dice"

Australian basketball great Andrew Bogut believes the Boomers are rolling dice by not replacing the injured Dante Exum at the Olympics.

Exum suffered a finger injury earlier this week in a warm-up game against France, with reports indicating he is likely to miss a portion of the Olympic tournament.

The Boomers have opted against flying over a replacement player for Exum, something Bogut says is a big risk ahead of Saturday night's campaign opener against Spain.

“It's a big out. Dante is not a guy that you look at the stat sheet and say, we're missing X, Y, Z, but he's a steadier,” Bogut said on The Gold Standard.

“Whenever he comes into games for the Boomers, it just seems things steady out a little bit. It's not as erratic.

“I have a bit of a worry losing him. I guess they're probably comfortable with the rotations they have and hoping that if they're going to get to where they want to get to, they need Dante there later in the tournament, but it might not be until game four, game five.

“You have a deep cut in your finger, we have all had deep cuts. If anyone has played ball sports, it's not even contact from another player. It's if you get hit with the ball nice and hard on a hard pass from Delly or from Josh (Giddey), it could open up that wound again, especially if it's affecting your shooting. So, a dice roll there by the Boomers coaching staff.”

Bogut and Brad Newley both backed the Boomers to win the game against Spain, which tips-off at 7:30pm AEST on Saturday night.

“I think we're favourites for a reason, but it still is a danger game when it's Spain. I'm still picking Australia, obviously, but I'm a little bit nervous about this one as our first game,” Bogut said.