Can anyone tell me why the Team USA system was changed? If it were as easy as changing the coach wouldn't you think that would have been done? LB was a bad fit, the players were a bad fit for international competition.

Are you guys really saying there is no difference between Lebron, Carmello and Wade from 2 years ago? Think those guys impoved a little to justify more PT?

ok...then answer my first question.

Can anyone tell me why the Team USA system was changed?

Because Larry wrecked the old system!

Bippity...thank you.

A couple of quotes from Coach Krzyzewski that might give interesting insight:

"I think keeping the ego of each guy at a high level is important,"

the author of the article below then adds:
The emphasis on subjugating egos is a direct reflection of the difference in the approach to basketball by the international powers that have embarrassed the U.S. in recent competitions.

http://sportsline.com/print/nba/story/9571554

........................

Less than one week before the Olympics began last August in Athens, Larry Brown met with officials from USA Basketball and lobbied to have Marbury cut and sent home, along with another unidentified player, prior to the Opening Ceremonies.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/330020p-282044c.html

........................

Brown was a bad fit which is the fault of Thomas and Mills for listening to Dolan who holds Thomas responsible. Brown was a horrible choice for Team USA as well which the NBA Board of Governors only owned up to after the fiasco in 2004. Stern should and will always take the blunt of blame. Who would have thunk it. I agree though a try out process is hundred times better and being able to cut players is perfect but look at Brown. He wanted to cut Marbury who probably was his best player over there. That's sad on so many levels.

Pharze and Allan: I agre with both of your posts. The only thing I take issue with is the part about Marbury. It doesn't matter if he is your best player. If LB is having problems with him and it can't be fixed it can lead to what we saw happen. that's the old high school mentality. Some coach's have great players and they let that player run roughshod over them so they can win a few games. Then they come to my gym and get trounced by a group of guys with no talent who work their tails off because they know I will literally kill them if they don't.

That's part of our problem here and I think Allanfan hits it on the head. It's not the talent level of the players or coach's here. We have a roster talented enough to win games. We've brought in coach's who are good enough to help us win games. But it's this culture of losing that permeates all that we do. Think about it, 4 or 5 guys come into camp out of shape. Instead of blasting them we blame our coaching staff. Our team quits for a stretch of almost 30 games, instead of blasting the players we say it's okay to quit because the coach is mean, or has a bad system or quit himself.

It's amazing to me. What has happened to our fans? Why aren't we demanding effort every night. How do we expect his amazing turnaround if we excuse players that think there is a reason to quit,ever. I don't care if the coach comes to practice screaming that he wants you to lose every game and subs guys in every 6 seconds. If you are a real man, you don't want to lose. Ever. That's sports. Guys that quit on themselves and us and Ny don't deserve our applause until they change. Our fans are slowly being sucked into this culture of losing. Settling for 40 win seasons and sneaking into eigth seeds. Praying we do whatever it takes to get us 40 wins instead of building towards a lasting championship.

It's time to change our methods. We have such a good young core. It would be a shame to mess with it.

Bip, the one thing though with Marbury and Isiah. We saw that Marbury couldn't even be dealt with by Brown and vice versa. I think Isiah and Mabury being boys now, we'll see Isiah stepping up to Marbury to his face, as opposed to the media and demand nothing but what Isiah wants and needs. I think the direction this team goes is how Marbury will respond to that. If he continues to only play good D for 4 game stretches then slacking for 3 weeks, I think you'll see his arse gone.

I kinda have faith in Isiah in choosing what players will be good to fit his system. We just have to hope he can deal with the egotystical veterans which is a bad kind of hope when you think of it....

I think though that our young core can gel nicely. Obviously we'll need a star to develop out of one of them maybe, or go get one. But the young guys we have are a good start, even if the vet situation is hard. I think you'll see him riding with the youngies though.

I think all hope for this org truely falls on them now. Curry, Lee, Frye, Crawford, Nate, Jefferies, Balkman, maybe Q. What are they gonna do?

vector, LB did a bad job and even should have been fired. He was part of the problem. Now lets work on fixing the rest of it. It's a very large problem and lingering on LB certainly wont help matters.

Do you think Isiah being on a 1 year ultimatum while being responsible for 2 enormous NBA jobs at the same time helps this problem too?

Back to the topic at hand. How's the moose head?