Unselfish Team USA follows LeBron's lead

Lal-mtl wrote:
With all that being said, accept the fact that 'defeating every team by 30-50' days are over.

Aint that the truth. The US use to be able to dominate without NBA players, now it is just favored to win with 90% of the NBA's best players. And yet we still only get the Bronze at best in 06.

Barnstable wrote:

Lal-mtl wrote:
With all that being said, accept the fact that 'defeating every team by 30-50' days are over.

Aint that the truth. The US use to be able to dominate without NBA players, now it is just favored to win with 90% of the NBA's best players. And yet we still only get the Bronze at best in 06.

The funny thing is we may not even win a bronze. Will our guys nut up?

The US team was too young.

The first Dream Team was so much more well rounded and fundamentaly sound. Not only could they score they could shut you down man to man and in help situations. They were also much more cohesive. I never heard any of them refer to themselves as "The Leader". All of them (excluding the college player, forgot who he was) were leaders.

KevDog wrote:On the contrary. I am very happy the USA lost. Patriotism is the last refuge of the immoral and weak of mind. I'll root for the noble and deserving regardless of their national affliation.


I wanted the USA team to lose as soon as it became apparent that the white dominated-seemingly patriotic media-was going to use any sucess of the national team to use their tired old saw of demonizing Kobe. When I saw LeBron fall, like a Tommish buffoon, into their act, it sealed the deal for me. Go Greece! Go Greece! Go Greece!

Interesting post. You managed to combine your reverse racism and anti-american loathing in a very catchy way.

Of course, I have to deduct point for illogically hating the players on Team USA for whatever imagined bias the "white dominated" media has.

Btw, why should you care if the media is white dominated? You claim to be a fan of whatever is noble and deserving. Are you implying a white journalist is incapable of noble thoughts? Don't bother to answer...it was a rhetorical question.

Barnstable wrote:The first Dream Team was so much more well rounded and fundamentaly sound. Not only could they score they could shut you down man to man and in help situations. They were also much more cohesive. I never heard any of them refer to themselves as "The Leader". All of them (excluding the college player, forgot who he was) were leaders.

That team didn't need a leader per se, they had several HoFers amongst the best to every play the game. They were playing against scrubs. Noone else had a chance.

Satan wrote:

Barnstable wrote:The first Dream Team was so much more well rounded and fundamentaly sound. Not only could they score they could shut you down man to man and in help situations. They were also much more cohesive. I never heard any of them refer to themselves as "The Leader". All of them (excluding the college player, forgot who he was) were leaders.

That team didn't need a leader per se, they had several HoFers amongst the best to every play the game. They were playing against scrubs. Noone else had a chance.

It's debatable as to which was more of a factor, between so called "Dream Teams", the greatness of that first team, or the rest of the world getting better. Even tho the world is definitely better I tend to think that team would still beat all of these teams by 20-30 easy. Even the US team.

I wish people would stop comparing teams with the original dream team. Their was no dout that team was phenomenal but the compeititon back then was no where near as good as it is right now. Its easy to blow out teams that give up prior to facing you.

MarkMadsen wrote:I wish people would stop comparing teams with the original dream team. Their was no dout that team was phenomenal but the compeititon back then was no where near as good as it is right now. Its easy to blow out teams that give up prior to facing you.

But that's the debate. Was the US team just that much better then or are the International competition so much better now making the difference.

Yeah I remember the fans form other counties holding up signs saying "We're #2" but I don't think it would have made that much difference because even if they thought they could win they would just loos by like five less. I tend to think it was more a display of how great that team was rather than how bad the competition was.

TIME wrote:

KevDog wrote:On the contrary. I am very happy the USA lost. Patriotism is the last refuge of the immoral and weak of mind. I'll root for the noble and deserving regardless of their national affliation.


I wanted the USA team to lose as soon as it became apparent that the white dominated-seemingly patriotic media-was going to use any sucess of the national team to use their tired old saw of demonizing Kobe. When I saw LeBron fall, like a Tommish buffoon, into their act, it sealed the deal for me. Go Greece! Go Greece! Go Greece!

Interesting post. You managed to combine your reverse racism and anti-american loathing in a very catchy way.

Of course, I have to deduct point for illogically hating the players on Team USA for whatever imagined bias the "white dominated" media has.

Btw, why should you care if the media is white dominated? You claim to be a fan of whatever is noble and deserving. Are you implying a white journalist is incapable of noble thoughts? Don't bother to answer...it was a rhetorical question.

Judging by this post. You're qualified to judge neither what qualifies as "reverse racism" nor correct logical syntax.

The funny thing is, no matter what people in denver, cleveland, or miami want to say is, this was no where near the best players we have to offer. For various reasons, these people didn't play, but if they did, we would've destroyed everyone:

Kobe
Shaq
KG
Duncan
Artest
Allen
Billups
Pierce
Marion
Stoudemire

I just rattled off 10 people of the top of my head that are better than any of the players that went to Japan. The only iffy's are obviously melo/lbj/wade, but you can make an argument that every one of those players listed above are better than those three.

And then other players that could have helped:
Odom
Redd
AI
Bibby
and of course, Al Harrington

But seriously, that first set of 10 that I ran off all had their legitimate or gay reasons not to go and thats why we lost. We don't love our country that much and thats the bottom line. And those players are right for not going.

Take Kobe for example...say the Lakers made it to the finals this year. Then his knee is really hurting him. Do you think he would get knee surgery before Game 1? Ofcourse not. He would wait till after the playoffs.

So then, with that logic, why didn't he wait till after the World Championships in Japan to get his knee surgery done? Becuase if did, then he would be out 6-8 weeks from now, which means he would miss parts of training camp and it would take the first 3 weeks of the season for him to get back into shape. So to Kobe, the NBA (and training camp) is more important than USA gold.

But you know what, we're americans and we work for $$$ only. And if I was Kobe, I'd do the same thing. I'd be like, I'd rather miss Japan, than have the Lakers start the season 3-12 without me because that might be too big of a hole for this young team to climb out of

[/quote]Are you implying a white journalist is incapable of noble thoughts?

Judging by all available evidence? vanishingly few are.

Kobe would have led this team to the championship if he were man enough to play, oh wait, he weren't. Healthy or not, it's ridiculous that people are making Kobe some kinda martyr, even though he hasn't even played twice in a row now, and dogging on the guys that ARE showing up. People think Kobe is all that, well, tell him to get out there then.

The truth of the matter is, Kobe wouldn't have made a difference. The international rules made it very favorable for the international players. With the trapezoidal paint, post play is irrelevant. With the zone, isolation is ineffective, and man-to-man D unnecessary. All you really need is to be able to shoot, and with the short 3-point line, it benefits the teams that rely most of their games on that. Basically, the rules favor just about everything the international players do, and take away all the strengths of the US players.

This is also why you see weird stuff like Nash winning the MVP, despite not being able to play a lick-of-D, and Phoenix winning that many games, despite Amare being injured. All you really need is to be able to shoot, shoot and shoot.

la3346 wrote:This is also why you see weird stuff like Nash winning the MVP, despite not being able to play a lick-of-D, and Phoenix winning that many games, despite Amare being injured. All you really need is to be able to shoot, shoot and shoot.

Well then, that means with Vlad we should be a lock for the finals

la3346 wrote:Kobe would have led this team to the championship if he were man enough to play, oh wait, he weren't. Healthy or not, it's ridiculous that people are making Kobe some kinda martyr, even though he hasn't even played twice in a row now, and dogging on the guys that ARE showing up. People think Kobe is all that, well, tell him to get out there then.

The truth of the matter is, Kobe wouldn't have made a difference. The international rules made it very favorable for the international players. With the trapezoidal paint, post play is irrelevant. With the zone, isolation is ineffective, and man-to-man D unnecessary. All you really need is to be able to shoot, and with the short 3-point line, it benefits the teams that rely most of their games on that. Basically, the rules favor just about everything the international players do, and take away all the strengths of the US players.

This is also why you see weird stuff like Nash winning the MVP, despite not being able to play a lick-of-D, and Phoenix winning that many games, despite Amare being injured. All you really need is to be able to shoot, shoot and shoot.

Kobe wouldn't have made us a lock. But who is better in the clutch? We only lost by like six points. His D and leadership would have been an upgrade too. I don't care what the media says, if Kobe were on that team, he would be the leader.

I am not trying to be sarcastic, but after seeing the Euro teams, I am actually feeling better about Vlad signing. The Euro guys are clearly tougher and play way more physical than most americans. PJ/KOBE/Vlad= championship

Barnstable wrote:

MarkMadsen wrote:I wish people would stop comparing teams with the original dream team. Their was no dout that team was phenomenal but the compeititon back then was no where near as good as it is right now. Its easy to blow out teams that give up prior to facing you.

But that's the debate. Was the US team just that much better then or are the International competition so much better now making the difference.

Yeah I remember the fans form other counties holding up signs saying "We're #2" but I don't think it would have made that much difference because even if they thought they could win they would just loos by like five less. I tend to think it was more a display of how great that team was rather than how bad the competition was.

Perhaps a combination of both. Very few teams are actually better than any other by 40 points. I'd say the "quit" factor probably accounts for half of that. Then if you assumed that the Dream Team is better that this current team by 10, and the past International ones worse than the current ones by the same amount, then you have the current result.

la3346 wrote:Kobe would have led this team to the championship if he were man enough to play, oh wait, he weren't. Healthy or not, it's ridiculous that people are making Kobe some kinda martyr, even though he hasn't even played twice in a row now, and dogging on the guys that ARE showing up. People think Kobe is all that, well, tell him to get out there then.

The truth of the matter is, Kobe wouldn't have made a difference. The international rules made it very favorable for the international players. With the trapezoidal paint, post play is irrelevant. With the zone, isolation is ineffective, and man-to-man D unnecessary. All you really need is to be able to shoot, and with the short 3-point line, it benefits the teams that rely most of their games on that. Basically, the rules favor just about everything the international players do, and take away all the strengths of the US players.

This is also why you see weird stuff like Nash winning the MVP, despite not being able to play a lick-of-D, and Phoenix winning that many games, despite Amare being injured. All you really need is to be able to shoot, shoot and shoot.

To play international ball you have to be able to shoot and shooting is something Kobe excels in, look at Melo he was the leading scoerer for Team USA, because of his great outside shooting. When you talk about isoloation well no one can guard Kobe one on one in the world and Kobe can just shoot over them like how Melo did to most teams. The reason why Wade and Bron didn't do so well was because they are mainly slasher that gets points from their drives and the international teams play great help defense, how can someone play help defense when Kobe can shoot it from anywhere on the court before the help defense can get to him? Since international teams don't believe in one on one defense but team defense. The only difference was that Kobe is a much better scoerer period and Melo started to choke at the very end and you know Kobe is Mr. Clutch.

crucifixion wrote:

la3346 wrote:This is also why you see weird stuff like Nash winning the MVP, despite not being able to play a lick-of-D, and Phoenix winning that many games, despite Amare being injured. All you really need is to be able to shoot, shoot and shoot.

Well then, that means with Vlad we should be a lock for the finals

If they changed the rectangular paint to the trapezoidal one. I've always wondered how Duncan would do if the NBA switched to the trapezoidal paint, my guess is he'll be as harmless as he was at the Olympics(think of where Duncan likes to set up, and think what happened if he didn't have the time to stay there for the entry pass.)

That's right KevDog, failure is due to people being "after you", it has nothing to do with people (regardless of color, something you seem pretty focused on - which is sad in tis own right - but I digress) not stepping up to be the professionals they claim to be.

It's always someone else's fault, right?

Anyway, in the grand scheme of things this FIBA championship means little compared to the Olympics. However, it sure is wonderful watching "writers' like this Windbag clown get their tired rhetoric shoved right back in their face, it's jsut too bad it came at the expense of the USA loising. But, so be it, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

Also, Team USA was in dire need of drive - not leadership. The guys all thought it was a cakewalk and treated is as such. Competitiveness took a backseat to lazy play and alckadiasical effort. It's no surprise they didn't get to the Finals. I'd be surprised if they stand a chance to even pull the bronze out right now.

Yes, Kobe most certainly wouldb'e made this a winning team and no - color has nothing to do with failure or success, it's drive, determination and a will to to do your best at any cost that wins the day.

By the way the reason the Euros play "tougher" (or seemingly so at least) is beacuse the NBA has softened up defenses (and defensiove mindsets)far too much in favor of the all-mighty scoring.

Defense and rebounding may not be thrilling to watch but it sure leads to some winning basketball - in all countries and cases.

euro players knock is there defence...

always has ben always will be

that's why they work so hard on that end of the floor.
all of a sudden.. there defence is on par with nba stadards...

not man to man defence obivously, but team defence. pick and roll, trap, zone, etc.

True - as far as team play goes the Europeans have it over the NBA guys. So, when it comes to these tourneys which are primarily based on team play the US struggles - no surprise.

When they come to the NBA which has now been turned into a primarily one on one / flash game (for the most part) the Euros struggle. Again, no surprise.

Going that route - when it comes to building these teams for the international tournaments, I think the US needs to look more to 2 or 3 superstars surrounded by solid role-playing types of players. Going the "awesome on paper" route with these teams just doesn't/won't work.

crucifido wrote:True - as far as team play goes the Europeans have it over the NBA guys. So, en it comes to these tourneys which are primarily based on team play the US struggles - no surprise.

When they come to the NBA which has now been turned into a primarily one on one / flash game (for the most part) the Euros struggle. Again, no surprise.

Going that route - when it comes to building these teams for the international tournaments, I think the US needs to look more to 2 or 3 superstars surrounded by solid role-playing types of players. Going the "awesome on paper" route with these teams just isn't/doesn't and won't work.

Excellent explanation.

Team USA followed LeBron's lead right down the toilet.