Posted by flyingvee:
I don't get how the international rules have been made to negate the US?? Those are the same rules they have used all along and even in 1992 and 94 and 96 when we had no probelms with them. I just know that even a present day first team All-star squad would lose to the 94 and 96 teams big time. The talent level has gone down big time.
Well... the talent level dropping is only part of the problem. International basketball has made major strides in the past 8 years.
They learned our game, broke it down to its fundamentals, then basically built basketball factories producing the players (and stars) of the future. However, this just applies to European basketball--- how did the Argentinians get so gosh-darned good?!?!
In short, the Europeans are playing basketball (our game) with the team spirit that basketball was built upon. They play with fundamentals, it's that simple--- it's the game that they learned from us in the early-mid 90s.
The style of play in the NBA has changed over the past decade. Maybe you can blame this partially on expansion teams diluting the talent, blame it player egos, blame it on the win-now mentalities of team owners. Coach attrition rates have been remarkably high in recent years--- Nearly every eastern conference team began the season with a new coach or fired this coach last season. That's something. With so much change, it's hard to teach and build. And with free agent rules and the salary cap, it's tough to keep the same core of players together for any period of time.
As a result, you see teams put together with one trick ponies, guys who have incomplete skill sets who haven't been able to further develop their deficiencies.
Yeah, in 2008 we might win gold again, but you can definitely expect our international opponents to step up their level of play too.
Which leads to a question--- Are we really more talented than the rest of the world?
There's a fine line between "talent" and refined skill. Talent implies innate potential-- do american players somehow have the ability to understand/react to the game better? Is there a reason why we should have more sheer athleticism than the international players?
