This team not being good as the other stacked national teams makes this tournament more interesting IMO.
Team simply has no balls, when Marcus Smart is your only player with any sort of killer instinct you're in trouble.
Team USA is still the most talented team, but I think it's dangerous to give those other teams any extra confidence. Nobody will ever underestimate a team this talented and coached by Popovich, but they might become more confident in their own ability. Being a little starstruck and timid used to be a factor for some of the international teams when facing the Americans. This might not be the case this year.
I wonder too if Pop's style will hurt the team more than help it. Pop has a pretty strict and stern style. Do what I say or you're benched kind of thing. Never putting another player over another, expecting the same effort and focus from every player he plays. This works when he has basically full power over an organization...but he doesn't really have power over these guys. I think a few losses could really unravel this team. If he were coaching Harden, Curry, Lebron, Kawhi etc etc...the talent would just be too much anyways. Now Pop is still a great tactician but I doubt the chemistry of these guys, especially on defense. Should be an interesting tourney.
From what I have heard he is a lot more relaxed and joking. He even made a joke about having them run and had them run 3 feet. I don’t think he is that worried about the whole thing.
That hasn't been the case in years. The international teams respect Team USA but none of the decent team have been timid or afraid in a decade or so.
I guess he does have some experience coaching some of these teams and probably knows a lighter hand will do. I guess I was just thinking about how he coaches his Spurs team.
I think Pop knows this "lighter" approach might also help recruit some of the talent to San Antonio, haha.
Time to call Olympic and World Championship hero Carmelo Anthony to swoop in and save American honor.
The puncher's chance that other countries will always have against Team USA is their systems. What we have seen in past Team USA disappointments is systems overcoming significant talent discrepancies. Most of the time, Team USA's talent will overwhelm everyone and probably will again. But we shouldn't be surprised if they lose this September. Better teams could lose, especially in do or die tournaments.
It's probably a 4-5th seed in the East, and around 7-8th seed in the West. They lack a real superstar.
Team USA seems to have a lack of playmakers especially in the backcourt. Jenna is the only guy who can create for others at a high level and White is the only other PG. Mitchell is not really a playmaker nor Tatum. I think that will be the issue with this team.
USA is the strongest on paper, but I'd bet money on Serbia winning it all this year. They're good enough defensively to give USA problems. And offensively... they have Jokic surrounded by elite shooters. Enough said.
