Olympic nightmare should wake up Stern

By Chad Ford
ESPN Insider

David Stern is not a happy man.

Since 1992, once every four years, average Americans (and general sports columnists) begin caring about NBA basketball. The Olympics are (or should that be were?) one of the NBA's most valuable tools to promote the league and its players world wide.

What Americans and the rest of the world saw this year was what most of us hardcore fans saw in 2002 at the World Championships in Indianapolis.

The world hasn't just caught up. The U.S. is now somewhere in its rear-view mirror.



SternSixth place at the World Championships (an event most national teams rank ahead of the Olympics in prestige.). Third place in the Olympics. These losses aren't flukes. Nor are they evidence of an American apocalypse.
In a world where America-bashing has become an art form -- the ability to roast the NBA along with the rest of America is icing on the cake for most non-U.S. basketball fans and observers.

I've spent a considerable amount of time over the past two and half years watching basketball around the globe. It seems like every friend I've met along the way, whether it be in Africa, the Middle East, South America or Europe, called this weekend to remind of something I already know.

Goliath can be dropped with a bounce pass and wide open jumper.

Most Americans have caught the same fever. Blame the millionaires. The dunks. The cornrows. The high school kids. The college kids. The NBA coaches. The college coaches. Even the AAU coaches. Throw Nike, adidas and Reebok in there for good measure (despite the fact they run more well-coached developmental camps than do the NBA or NCAA).

"The NBA sucks!" I've heard more than one friend tell me this weekend. Of course they say it while wearing an Allen Iverson jersey, Air Jordans on their feet and holding a bottle of LeBron-flavored Powerade.

Everyone is missing the real culprit here in the rush to play Dr. Phil. Meanwhile, the real enemy is slinking away in the shadows.

Blame Argentina. Blame Lithuania. Blame Italy, Puerto Rico and Serbia. They all have conspired for more than a decade to steal the U.S.'s throne. After years of planning, practice and hard work, they've figured out how to get it done.

I traveled to Serbia shortly after the Yugoslavian national team had defeated the U.S. to bring home the gold at the 2002 World Championships. I wanted to understand how such a small, war-torn country kept producing terrific basketball players. Within hours of arriving in the ravaged nation, I knew the team's victory was anything but a fluke.

Remember in the first Rocky, when Apollo Creed's manager is watching TV and catches a local newscast of Rocky Balboa working out in a meat factory? Rocky is using a side of beef as a punching bag. The look on his manager's face when he realizes Rocky doesn't look at the fight as an exhibition match, but as a war, is classic. I must have looked the same way when I walked into that cold gym in Belgrade in December, 2002.


The scene at the gym is reminiscent of anything you'd catch at a playground in New York City. Graffiti litters the walls of the dilapidated gym. Kids shoot baskets outside through hoops with no nets. Metal bars line every window. The gym is surrounded on each side by Belgrade's toughest housing projects. Broken-down cars line the sides of the road. Wary eyes watch our every move as we pull up to the gym.
When we walk in, the room grows unusually quiet. The silence lasts just a moment, but it is palpable. So is the look on many faces. I felt for a minute like we were in Rocky III, walking with Apollo Creed into an inner city gym in Los Angeles and feeling the fighters' pause and fix us with that fierce gaze, just for a few seconds. That's the only way I can describe the scene. It was the eye of the tiger. These kids were hungry. And they immediately recognized that something foreign had intruded on their isolated world.

The play is unbelievable. The kids, all 15, 16 and 17 years old, are huge. There are 6-4 point guards dishing to 6-11 three-men. Seven-footers are jockeying for position in the post. The kids are too big to play there. They look like NBA greats playing on an elementary school gym. None of them is old enough to grow facial hair. All of them have games far beyond what we see from U.S. teenagers.

The trademarks of Yugoslavian basketball were all present, even on the junior team. The kids rarely missed an open jumper, and every player on the court could see the floor and make the correct pass.

At that moment I knew America's loss at the World Championships was not an accident. The U.S. was in trouble.

While someone could write a whole dissertation on what U.S. basketball has done wrong and how it needs to fix the process, that's the least of Stern's worries.

The Olympics come and go once every four years. No one in America cares about the World Championships. America's failure to take home the gold may sting. But the memory of it will quickly fade.

Nationalism and sport don't mix in America the way they do in the rest of the world. We care less. To Americans, the Olympics are a two-week diversion every fourth summer. To much of the rest of the world, they are a defining moment in culture. With all of the terrible economic and political upheaval taking place in Argentina, dual golds in basketball and soccer act as a balm to the pain of every day life.

The NBA, on the other hand, is with us seemingly 24/7. A real possibility exists that the backlash from America's Olympic defeats may come back to bite Stern and the rest of the league in the butt.

Twelve years ago, the Olympics were seen as marketing bonanza for the league. Now Stern & Co. are in damage control.

Some of the NBA's most marketable stars have walked away with chinks in their armor. A hall of fame coach who preached playing the "right way" all the way to an NBA title, looked tired and out of his league. The idea that the NBA champ Pistons are the "world champions" has become downright laughable.

Stern knows he can't get away with doing nothing. Too many people, over the course of the past few weeks, fell in love with the crisp passing, backdoor cuts, sharp shooting and fluid motion that the international game provides. Selling the slow-down, defensive-orientated, dunk-heavy, one-on-one isolation game that the NBA extols will never be tougher.

The rest of the world is catching up with the NBA athletically. As far as fundamentals go, however, America is losing by a mile.

"I do not think that we have a lack of talent," Stern told reporters on Saturday. "On the contrary, we've got to do a better job of teaching our youngsters the basics. This is a shared responsibility between the league, the coaches and the players themselves."

How does the league live up to that responsibility? Insider breaks down a few things the NBA must do to regain American hoops dominance.


1. Change the rules
One of Team USA's biggest problems is its unfamiliarity with international rules. As I wrote two weeks ago, the international game and the NBA game are further apart than most Americans realize.
The international game emphasizes ball movement, perimeter shooting and zone defense. The NBA emphasizes power, athleticism and one-on-one play, both offensively and defensively. Americans have been frustrated by the international referees and how they call the games. But the rules of the international game are meant to support the international style, just as the NBA's rules support the style of game the league wants to present its fans.

That's why NBA officials still let players travel on virtually every possession -- it makes for better one-on-one play. In Europe, anything beyond one step is a travel. Why? Trying to beat your man off the dribble takes away from the team game.

The same holds true for the trapezoid lane. In international play, big men are forced to develop better shooting and ball-handling skills, in part, because the lane is wider. They cannot catch the ball on the block, lower a shoulder into their defender, and then rise for a huge dunk. The basket is just too far away. For international big men to succeed, they must develop their jumpers, footwork and passing skills.


Shaquille O'Neal is the most famous example of the bruising, unrefined American big man.
In the NBA, our big guys are so big and so athletic, they believe they can overpower anyone. While there are players like Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan who don't fit this mold, too many NBA bigs aren't capable of doing anything other than bullying their way to the basket. I don't know one fan who likes to watch the big guys do it. I'm not even sure the rules (the NBA ones, that is) even allow it.

Still, the refs let them get away with it, and what you get is boredom. Shaquille O'Neal is one of the most dominant bruisers to ever play the game. But he had the talent to be one of the greatest players to ever play the game had his coaches and the refs forced him to do something besides play a wrecking ball in the lane.

The NBA should also consider moving the 3-point line in three feet to the international standard. Now that the league allows zone defenses, the line is too far away for most good shooters (even the international ones) to break it. The international line is 20 feet, 6¼ inches. The NBA line is 23-feet-9 from the bucket. That's a huge difference. With the line closer, it will encourage more players to practice shooting and making the 3.

As it stands now, only a few specialists can really hit the NBA 3 with any precision. Moving it closer might make things too easy for Ray Allen and Michael Redd. But since when have you heard fans clamoring for less shooting or scoring?

From 1994 to 1997 the NBA shortened the 3-point line in an attempt to increase scoring. But the experiment, for the most part, failed. However, at that point, zone defenses were still illegal in the league. Now that teams can play zone, the move makes more sense.

Even Larry Brown, who hates the 3-point shot, thinks the league should consider moving the line in to the international standard.

"I think, the way I look at it, it [the NBA 3-point line] almost encourages bad shots," Brown said in January, well before Team USA's defeat. "The only thing I do like about it is I think it discourages zones if we would ever move (the three-point line) to international rules. I didn't think our game was invented that way, to play zone. I think in international rules it's either 20 feet, 6 inches or 20 feet, 9 inches. You don't see a lot of teams zoning (internationally) because the shot's a lot closer."

The NCAA rules committee recommended making most of these changes in 2003, but the NCAA executive committee shot them down. If the league made the first move, the colleges and high schools would follow. Playing their rules would certainly increase our familiarity with international basketball without taking anything people love away from the NBA game.


2. Give coaches some power
Why are international players so fundamentally sound? Do they possess some sort of special work ethic that American players don't? Some do, especially ones from war-torn areas who use basketball as a way to get out of a bad situation. However, most European or South American young players have the same issues Americans do.
What's different is that international coaches still weild more power than their players. That gives them authority to make players practice, to bench them when they don't play the "right way" and to control their basketball development in a way American coaches only dream of.

NBA coaches have lost almost all of their moral authority. Eighteen coaches lost their jobs in the span of one year last season. Stephon Marbury has played for nine coaches in his NBA career. And you wonder why he doesn't know how to fight through a screen?

College coaches still retain some control, but that's dwindling, too. The pressure to win has become so overwhelming at most schools that coaches are now playing players sooner and teaching less than they ever have before. They have no choice. Players will leave for the NBA (and the league will take them) if they don't feel they're getting enough love. A few losing seasons, especially at an elite school, even if it's done in an attempt to make the players better, will usually get you a pink slip.

How sad is that? Colleges, whose sole purpose on the planet should be to educate young people, are firing university employees who are trying to do just that, in the name of the almighty dollar.

The AAU coaches who control most of the young blue-chip prospects are a joke. They're just hoping for a free ride if one of their kids hits it big.

"Youth coaches want to win," said Donnie Nelson, Mavs president of basketball operations and an assistant coach to the Lithuanian team. "So they stick their big man inside. They don't develop his skill. They don't put him outside, so he doesn't learn anything."

“ You can't be an individual over here (in Europe). They beat that out of you. We've learned how to play the team game. ”
— Scoonie Penn

International coaches receive prestige and honor from taking raw players and turning them into well-rounded team players who can serve the national team down the road. American coaches get kicked to the curb unless they win -- player development be damned.

International coaches run their players through a minimum of four hours of practice every day. At least two hours of that practice, even for seasoned veterans, are drills meant to enhance fundamentals like shooting, passing and dribbling.

Scoonie Penn, who's played in college, the NBA and internationally, claims American practices are a joke compared to what he's put through every day in Croatia.

"It's intense," Penn said. "The practices are two times as intense as what you go through in the NBA. We spend a lot more time on fundamentals over here. ... You can't be an individual over here. They beat that out of you. We've learned how to play the team game."

Stern can't do anything about the AAU coaches or college coaches, but he can do something about the climate of fear most coaches face in the NBA. With the collective bargaining agreement about to end, Stern should fight for rules that make training camps longer, guaranteed player contracts shorter (thus allowing teams to fire the player instead of the coach), and rookie contracts for high school players longer (to give teams more time to develop them).

In that vein, Stern also have to fight for a minor league system that gives the league more control over player development.


3. Develop a minor league
Several commentators have used the American defeat as yet another call for an NBA age limit or to curb the flood on young players headed to the league each year.
Given the problems with coaching at the college level, is that really the answer? It isn't like a team of college seniors would've made the difference. Given the troubled state in which the college game now sits, does Stern and the rest of the NBA really want to rely on the NCAA to fix this problem?

I've been stumping for something radically different all year. The NBA should start offering an alternative for those kids who don't want to play in college and instead have the talent and desire to turn pro younger -- a true minor league that focuses solely on developing fundamentals and basketball skills.

Many GMs support a system in which each NBDL team serves as a farm team for NBA teams.


Each NBA team would send young players to a designated NBDL team, along with an assistant coach to monitor the players' development. If the NBDL expands to 15 teams, two NBA teams would share each NBDL team.

If the player was a first-round pick, he'd continue to be paid at the rookie wage scale. If the player was a second-round pick or free agent, he would have a split contract that paid him different amounts depending on whether he was in the NBA or NBDL.

Teams retain the rights to all of their players and could recall them at any time.

The move likely would coincide with the expansion of the NBA draft to more than the current two rounds. If teams have a place to put players for whom they don't have roster spots, they could theoretically own the rights to more players. Some GMs believe such a system actually would curb the flow of young players into the league. If a teenager knew there was a chance he could be stuck in the D league for a few years, college or international play may be more appealing.
Stern told Insider in April that he's for such a move. NBA teams don't have the roster spots or the facilities to handle the influx of young players who are heading into the league. Too many of them are forced to sit on the ends of a bench, missing out on valuable playing time.

Many would argue this is why Stern should push for an age limit, forcing kids to head to and stay in college for a few years. But that's not how the rest of the world approaches these things.

(Aside: Even more absurd are the rules that prohibit high school and college players from working out or playing with NBA teams. Every club I saw in Europe had a youth team that developed young talent. The kids got an opportunity to play every day, learn from the top coaches in Yugoslavia and then, at times, to practice with the senior team. Relationships are built; players learn from the best and ultimately realize their potential much sooner than American players do. Can you imagine any other university program that discourages its undergraduates from creating relationships with the most talented people in their chosen profession?)

In Europe, and throughout most of the rest of the world, players are allowed to turn pro as young as 15. Most basketball federations feel the best way to ensure a talented player achieves his potential is to take the player at a young age and have him working with the top coaches and top players that the country has to offer.

This allows international teams plenty of time to work on fundamentals and develop skills in the players. By the time the player turns 18 or 19, he should be ready to contribute to the first team.

Before Americans start gagging at the idea, it's probably a good time to point out that those cute American gymnasts you were cheering for in the Olympics do the exact same thing. Ditto for our swimmers, divers, tennis players and a host of other American Olympians.

I'm not advocating the NBA draft players when they are 15 or encourage them to give up college, if that's what they want. But the league is going to have to deal with the fact that it is getting younger and younger. An age limit would correct some of our problems. But a minor league system stocked with the best coaches, facilities and educators that our country has to offer is a better solution.


4. Keep flooding NBA with international players
The NBA now employs roughly 70 to 80 international players. Many of them have moved out of the traditional "supporting cast" role that international players have played for years and turned into stars.
Manu Ginobili, Pau Gasol, Yao Ming and Carlos Arroyo were dominant in the Olympics, squelching the idea that the NBA has gone completely to hell.

While their influence on the league is still relatively minor, it continues to grow. As it does, the NBA game adapts its rules to accommodate them. The allowance of zone defenses was, in part, an attempt by the league to make it more international friendly. A player's individual defensive deficiencies can be hidden with a great team defense.

Teams like the Kings and Mavs have deliberately featured international players and adapted a style of play more conducive to their strengths. While neither team has won a title, both teams are winners, and just as importantly, are fun to watch.

The Spurs and Jazz have starting fives with a majority of international players. The Pistons, though not filled with international stars, have been collecting players who would excel at the international game. Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace and Tayshaun Prince would all excel at the international game because of their versatility, ability to shoot the ball and strong fundamentals.

As the international players continue to flood the league, the style of game will change, and American players will be forced to adapt. I believe America still has the most raw basketball potential of any country in the world. If young American players begin to believe they must learn how to dribble and shoot to make it in the NBA, they'll develop those skills too. No one likes to lose jobs from overseas.

In the meantime, why aren't NBA GMs and coaches, who openly complain about the lack of fundamentals on their teams, starting to bring over veteran international players who have proved themselves on the big stage?

Veteran international players like Sarunas Jasikevicius, Fabrico Oberto, Luis Scola (whose rights are owned by the Spurs), Gianluca Basile, Lazaros Papadopoulous, Arvydas Macijauskas, Matt Nielson and Pero Cameron belong in the NBA.

While none of them have star potential in the NBA, all of them could be excellent role players who provide shooting, leadership or size in a league that is desperate for all three.

We should also be doing our best to tap a growing network of top international coaches and executives. The NBA has been flirting with international coaches like Ettore Messina and Svetislav Pesic for years. Ditto for Benetton GM Maurizio Gherardini. They might not be able to help out our national team, but they could provide valuable insight into how to incorporate the best of what the international game has to offer with the strengths of the NBA.


5. Two worlds, one game
There's a reason why international players are pushing their way past their American counterparts -- they are paying attention.
I've been amazed at the knowledge of the game international players possess. They understand the knocks that Americans have made on international players for years (too soft, no defense, lack of passion) and have made big efforts to eliminate them from their games.

Their practices are hard. The play in Europe is getting more physical. The kids are lifting weights now. The big kids are deliberately spending more time on their low-post games to become more versatile. There is a conscious effort over there to adapt their games to the NBA's style of play while, at the same time, keeping the core strengths of the international game intact.

And on the U.S. side of the pond, there is a conscious attempt by some NBA coaches to adopt a team style of basketball that rejects the individualist, isolationist style of play that has dominated the NBA for too long, for a more team-oriented, fundamentally sound, inside-outside attack that has long been a staple of international basketball.

Merge the two worlds together. Catch the vision. The borders are dissolving. The swells are rising. A new basketball world order is emerging. The revolution is here.

David Stern's chance to embrace it is now.

Chad Ford covers the NBA for ESPN Insider.

I would love Chad to explain something to me. Why when US players struggle to adopt to international rules its because they lack fundamentals? Beating your man one on one isnt a skill? Oh.. I'm soooo sorry all your players arent as fast and strong as ours. Lets develop a set of rules that eliminates size and athleticism from a game based on size and athleticism.

I liked the following article. It falls into my line of thinking much more than chad ford. Some of his ideas are nice. But this article from yahoo has better ideas. Also I find Ford's ridiculing of the Pistons ridiculous. I my opinion, and I believe a lot of your would share it, the Pistons wouldve dismantled the other countries if you sent the whole team as a whole for the US. Their tough defense would be great and rip would would tear them all a new one with this jumpers. Don't get me started on Ford's idea to move the nba 3 pt line back to 20 ft. talk about lowering standards. the international line needs to be moved back. I can hit 20 ft 3 pters for godsakes!





Yahoo! Sports - NBA - Requiem for a Dream TeamYahoo!


Requiem for a Dream Team

John Hollinger, SI.com





And now, the real work begins.
Despite sending 12 highly talented individuals to Athens -- emphasis
on individuals -- the once-mighty American team settled for the
bronze. The descent began with a humiliating loss to a U.S.
territory ('scuse me ... commonwealth) and, adding insult to injury,
was capped by a semifinal loss to a team with three NBA players and
several Fabio impersonators.
First, let's dispel two popular myths about the American squad: They
didn't care and they didn't know how to share the ball. The guys who
didn't care were the ones who chose to stay in the States. As for
not sharing the ball, the U.S. led all teams in assists at these
Olympics by a wide margin.
Granted, there were real troubles -- they couldn't make jumpers and
they couldn't defend. The jumpers were mainly a problem of roster
selection, not some wider malaise afflicting the NBA as many seem to
think. For all the hand-wringing about poor American shooters, seven
of the top 10 3-point shooters in the NBA last year were American.
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The poor defense owed mostly to a lack of preparation and practice,
making what were in truth some pretty average players look like
superstars. Manu Ginobili, for instance, played an entire NBA season
last year and scored as many as 29 points exactly twice, but
shredded the U.S. for 29 in the semis.
So it came down to roster selection and preparation. Given those
shortcomings, the question now is what can be done to improve U.S.
teams in the future?
I'd like to humbly put forward two important reforms that could
result in a much better team representing the U.S. at the World
Championships in 2006 and eventually in Beijing in 2008.
First, USA Basketball has to distance itself from the NBA. The
league had a huge amount of input in the selection of the USA team,
which would be unthinkable for any of the other national squads.
This is doubly confounding since the commissioner is all but openly
rooting for other teams as part of his international marketing
blitz. (Seriously, does any other pro league, in any sport, in any
country keep separate stats for "international leaders" on its Web
site?)
Unfortunately, the word that accurately describes the relationship
between USA Basketball and the NBA isn't printable on a family Web
site. This needs to change. The job of USA Basketball is to win
tournaments, not to help David Stern sell merchandise. The obvious
first step would be dismissing Stu Jackson, who is both the National
Team Committee Chair and the NBA's discipline czar, third from
Stern's throne. Involving him in personnel selection is ludicrous
given his horrendous mismanagement of the expansion Vancouver
Grizzlies. The U.S.'s mismatched roster offered further proof.
More importantly, the next time it's "suggested" that the U.S.
select a highly touted young player (Dwyane Wade) who doesn't fit
the team's needs, USA Basketball has to have enough gumption and
confidence to politely decline. It's the national team, not Stern's.
If he's so geeked up about the international players, he can pick a
squad for Guatemala.
The more important reform is that somebody's gotta be in charge.
That's right: It's time for the long overdue step of hiring a
full-time national team coach. Several other countries already do
this, including Spain, which was easily the best-coached team in the
tournament.
I mean no disrespect to Larry Brown and his staff. While perhaps the
Olympics were not Brown's finest hour, the simple truth is that he
had no chance from the start. Having to go through the mental grind
of the NBA playoffs and immediately jump into the crucible of the
Olympics was too much to handle, and the team suffered for it.
A full-time national coach would have several advantages. For
starters, the scouting would be much better. Take one example from
the Argentina game. I don't think the U.S. coaches had any idea that
Alejandro Montecchia could make 3-pointers, because he hadn't done
squat in the other Olympic games. But he shot 39 percent from
downtown in Euroleague games last year, making it no surprise that
he hit 3-of-6 when the U.S. continually left him open by going under
the pick on screen-and-rolls Saturday. A full-time national coach
would have the time to scout these guys and design a game plan
accordingly.
What's more, the coach would be much more tuned in to the
international game. One of the big problems with treating the
coaching gig as a three-week temp assignment is that the coach is
learning on the fly while trying to wean himself off an NBA mindset.
A full-time national coach wouldn't have that problem. He would know
instinctively when to use a zone or what offensive sets work the
best.
Additionally, there could be a distinct U.S. style. Instead of
constantly importing an NBA coach's "system" and trying to ram that
square peg into the round hole that is international basketball,
there would be offensive and defensive sets fine-tuned for the
international game. As an added plus, players who played for the
U.S. team over a period of years (a pipe dream, I know, but hear me
out) wouldn't need to train for as long because they would already
be familiar with the team's system.
Take it a step further. Most of the players who join the national
squad are on the young side, because the older players all bail to
rest, be with their kids or guest-host the MTV awards. Many of these
players gain experience with the international team by playing for
the U.S. as collegians in the World University Games or Pan Am Games
or as pros in the pre-Olympic Americas tournament. So wouldn't it be
great if all those teams ran the same plays and used the same
defensive sets? Wouldn't that make more sense than the current
rag-tag set-up?
Of course, we need somebody to run this thing. A few names pop up as
guys who would have the time and ability to do it. Mike Fratello is
still in touch with the game for instance, and has plenty of free
time. If Jerry Sloan retired from the Jazz, he would be a good
choice too, except that he might kill one of the incompetent
international refs with his bare hands.
But there's one guy who would be best. He loves the 3-pointer, which
is a staple of international hoops, and knows how to use it to great
advantage. He likes to press and trap, a huge weapon for the U.S.
that has been massively underutilized by the pressed-into-service
NBA coaches. He's familiar with the pro game from coaching two NBA
teams. He's undoubtedly looking for a new challenge. And he has the
time to do it because his season ends in March.
Yes, that's right ... Rick Pitino.
Think about it. His style couldn't be more perfect for international
basketball, and his boundless energy is tailor-made for the NCAA
Tournament-like style of the Olympic schedule. Moreover, his biggest
weaknesses will be a non-issue -- he can't possibly grate on the
players because they aren't on the team long enough, and he can't
trade for all his Kentucky guys because he won't be in charge of
personnel. Just to be sure, we can put in his contract that he can't
have Walter McCarty or Antoine Walker on the team.
Fast forward to the World Championships in 2006. Imagine a team of,
say, Gilbert Arenas, Chauncey Billups, Michael Redd, Mike Miller and
LeBron James in the backcourt, with Corey Maggette, James Posey and
Carmelo Anthony on the wings and Emeka Okafor, Carlos Boozer, Zach
Randolph and Brad Miller in the frontcourt. Miller, Redd, Billups
and Anthony would be bombing away on 3s, Arenas, LeBron, Posey and
Maggette would be terrorizing ballhandlers in the press, and the
other guys would be laying down the law in the frontcourt. With a
balanced team running a real system and not some mildly modified NBA
offense, led by a full-time coach who has scouted all the opponents,
the U.S. would be nearly impossible for other countries to handle.
Appointing a full-time coach wouldn't be a panacea. The world is
catching up, and international hoops by nature is more fluke-prone
because the elimination round is one-and-done and the 3-point line
is so short. But no matter the rules, it seems preposterous for a
nation with so much basketball talent to go 5-3 over eight games in
the Olympics. Getting rid of the NBA's undue influence over the
proceedings and hiring a full-time coach seem like two good ways to
put the U.S. back on top.

There are some valid points BUT BASKETBALL was invented in AMERICA so let's have a little more respect with the original rules.

Although I do agree with the fact that the NBA needs to stress more of the fundamentals it doesn't mean we have to play only Euro rules, that's ridiculous.

Move the 3 point line in? That benefits Euro players without a doubt. So now that makes EVERY EURO player a threat. Keep the line back. The 3 point line is there because there should be more of a risk to hit it since you do earn 3 points...duh. Now when you move it in and every Whitey Deluca will be able to hit that, just like they did in the Olympics.

The paint should stay as it is and not converted to that weird ass shape. Once again this benefits Europeans and their style of play.

All these rules you might think stress fundamentals but I also think they stress more of a certain mold of players.

There is no reason why one on one and team play can't coexist and Euro rules clearly prohibit this because one on one the majority of Euro players are not on the level of the USA.

Posted by fishmike:

I would love Chad to explain something to me. Why when US players struggle to adopt to international rules its because they lack fundamentals? Beating your man one on one isnt a skill? Oh.. I'm soooo sorry all your players arent as fast and strong as ours. Lets develop a set of rules that eliminates size and athleticism from a game based on size and athleticism.

And another thing, how is playing a zone and hiding deficiencies going to make a player better? This article is BS.. the key in this article is that most players don't care about these international games... The key is that people play to see the running game, passing and cutting is great but I don't see many people dying to see princeton play and they play as fundamentally sound of a game as there is.. I think the key is that people would like to see a combination of athleticism and skill, Stern in his attempt to internationalize the game has hurt it to some degree IMO, and the zone is one thing that I hate, I mean basketball is a team game but it is about communication and helping the other guy out, that is why man to man defenses are great because the players have a responsibility for their man but also for helping their teamates out, that is why you have trap defenses, disguised double teams, it requires real coaching. Zones require what type of skill?

I don't know what everyone is afraid of. Why are we so resistant to change? There was an article on how Europe changed Hockey as well. Basketball may have been invented in America (by a Canadian), but now that the invention has been set loose - there are many takes on the way the game should be played.

I cannot see one bad thing about our highly talented, super-athletic, American, NBA players learning how to shoot, pass and dribble fundamentally. I think it would improve the overall quality of the game. Zone defenses might mask a player's defensive deficiencies, but routinely allowing NBA players to travel on offense masks a deficiency too.

Hey I don't think we're as bad as everyone likes to claim nowadays (in fact, despite the bronze - I still think we're the best), but I'm not going to condemn every influence from outside America just because we've been great for all these years. Let's take the best of both worlds and combine them - I think that was the main idea that Chad Ford was trying to convey and I don't think it's a bad one. Whether his suggestions for applying that principle are sound or not is up for debate, but I can't see any bad coming from the synthesis of both games.

I've suffered through many a brickfest and seen countless games with sloppy play and horrible turnover numbers over recent years. Don't we agree that something needs to be done about the quality of play in the NBA overall? Be honest, to criticize doesn't necessarily have to mean that you hate NBA ball, but wouldn't you like the quality of games to improve?

Posted by Bonn1997:

Posted by Stevo718:

There are some valid points BUT BASKETBALL was invented in AMERICA so let's have a little more respect with the original rules.

Actually basketball was invented in CANADA. I guess you could say it was invented in North America

Actually basketball was invented in Massachusetts by a Canadian.

Actually, he's right, Naismith invented the game in Springfield, MA. That's why the hall of fame is there.

Yep basketball was invented in Massachusetts by Dr. James Naismith who was a gym teacher at the time and was trying to invent a sport that could keep his students indoors during the winter. He got a couple of peach baskets and before you know it the game of basketball had been invented.

BTW I think that we really don't need to change the rules of the NBA game. We still have the best players in the world, we just need a smart olympic committee to send them. A team of our best shooters, perimiter defenders, and overall players would still be good enough to capture the gold. I do agree that a minor league system would be great for the league. There are too many young players that come into the league and get cut by teams because they are just no ready yet. With a minor league system like the NBDL you could send your 2nd or 3rd round (if they add a couple of more rounds to the draft) picks to the development league if they are not ready to play in the NBA. In the NBDL coaches would then be paid to help the players develop their game, not win. I think its foolish for anyone to say that we are not the best anymore because the FIBA game is totally different than the game that we have invented and changed throughout the years.

No, it is not only shooting threes. Just watch a Euroleague game and you will find he same diversity you have in NBA. They shoot all the Threes becauso Team USA was unable to defend it.