Posted by martin:

Posted by nyballer:

everyone says the us bball players aren't the best in the world, etc. but I don't buy it. If you picked the best players in europe and gave them 2 months to practice together and asekd them to play the heat or suns or mavs (with dirk), i dont think they'd beat the NBA team. so it doesn't make sense to say that international teams that play together beating the US team means we aren't the best basketball talents in the world. It means the world is getting better, but I bet any international team would take each US player on their team, but not the other way around. basketball is a team sport, and it's just that we aren't so much better that we can get a loose team together to play guys that have been together for a while.

from the Insider article I posted earlier, it makes sense to me:

And don't give me this jive about Greece, Spain and Argentina playing together so long. Those guys play on different teams, and sometimes in different countries, during the season. They're not holed up in some gym playing together year round.

And many of them have different roles on their professional teams than they do on their national teams. Do you think Andres Nocioni's the same player now that he was two years ago in Argentina? No way.

But the international players grow up playing team basketball. They grow up screening and cutting and shooting. So when they reunite, it's like clockwork.

The international players and coaches will never admit this publicly, but in their heart of hearts I bet they're beginning to view American basketball like America's "real basketball'' fans, players and coaches view And1 Streetball.

Posted by oohah:



It's true that they don't play together all the time, but they do know each other, many of them grew up playing on the same teams, and they do have plenty of past experience playing together on the national team.

Add in the fact that so many of these teams are fielding NBA players and in some cases NBA stars, it adds up to a huge advantage.

LET THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM REPRESENT THE US!!!!!!

oohah

I really wouldn't mind that myself but there is a bad side to that. What if the championship team was the Mavs? Dirk would be playing with Germany, I dunno, I'm not sure how it would work.

Posted by oohah:




Then pick up a tim Duncan or a KG. What is more important is that we would be fieldinga team that is used to playing and executing with each other. They would be a balanced team with Rebounders, Defensive players, a team where players have actual roles.

Anyway, what's the worst that could happen? We might lose to Greece?

oohah

That could work oohah, I would definately go for that kind of system.

Posted by oohah:

Posted by nyk4ever:

Posted by oohah:



It's true that they don't play together all the time, but they do know each other, many of them grew up playing on the same teams, and they do have plenty of past experience playing together on the national team.

Add in the fact that so many of these teams are fielding NBA players and in some cases NBA stars, it adds up to a huge advantage.

LET THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM REPRESENT THE US!!!!!!

oohah

I really wouldn't mind that myself but there is a bad side to that. What if the championship team was the Mavs? Dirk would be playing with Germany, I dunno, I'm not sure how it would work.

Then pick up a tim Duncan or a KG. What is more important is that we would be fieldinga team that is used to playing and executing with each other. They would be a balanced team with Rebounders, Defensive players, a team where players have actual roles.

Anyway, what's the worst that could happen? We might lose to Greece?

oohah

then we start right back to square one. a team that has a major player that does not know the system being exposed. there isn't any easy suggestion. we first blamed karl and brown's coaching style of alienating certain players and using ones that are conducive with their style. one ended up in sixth place while the other got the bronze medal. each team lacked something. karl's team lacked a consistent scorer. brown's team lacked a consistent outside shooter while this team lacked a perimeter defender ( that is why bowen's cut was a headscratcher). at first i thought this squad got it togehter. they had a balnce squad with inside shooting ( bosh and brand), outside shooting ( kinrich), speed ( wade) and versatility ( bron and melo). so what went wrong? well, i hinted no good perimeter defenders. defense is not overrated on a balance team. all of the successful teams had good perimeter defenders ( jordan, pippen, thomas, kidd, etc.). they got back on defnese and quarterback the defnesive end greatly. leaders of defense. greeks constanly had free reign so pass in the paint and shoot outside. wade is our best perimeter defender but he has made mistakes on the defensive end. melo and bron fall into that category. if we want a truly good team it must be balanced and that team we have is not it.