[ESPN]DeMarcus Cousins injured in Team USA practice

maybe because most of them are from other countries and would rather represent them? I am not sure if you are being serious or are just a troll...

 

Point is, players who are playing for their country out of honor are getting injured (higher risk if you play vs. not play in competitive basketball matches), while players don't hold such honor are avoiding them.

Obligated players injure too, but since it is obligated it is more fair.

In a way, by exposing honorable players to a higher risk of injury is encouraging players to not be honorable.

 

No but we can deny them a chance to hop on and off the team without a commitment. It's not fair for players to say, "I want to win a gold medal at the Olympics" and then say, "nah, I'm not going" whenever it's for a World Cup.

 

so then nba players shouldn't be playing basketball in pro am and rec leagues in the off season then right. those are probably considered more dangerous than official league sanctioned activities.

 

Field an all Native American team - that will settle it. Kareem can coach.

 

I really love this idea. Bring geriatric Big Country out of retirement (wasn't he part-native-american?) and hope Najara has something left in the tank.

 

I'd much rather we put the best team together that we can on the floor for Team USA. What we might lose in chemistry we should make up for in talent and fit.

Also, NBA teams are put together with salary restrictions. While USA teams are put together with no such restrictions, so we're much more able to put together players that compliment each other while maximizing talent.

 

If the USA team has real competition, then yes, you are correct.

My suggestion was to have the NBA champion team to do it. While they lose some foreign players on the team, they can fill those with talents from other teams.

My main point was that it is not fair to expose higher risk to honorable players that is willing to play for their country. Make it an obligation, and since it is the NBA champion team that plays, very low chance players would deliberately lose in the finals to avoid their duties.

 

I'm not sure many people are advocating that. It's just disappointing when players don't want to be a part of a great competition.

 

I'm still having a hard time understanding your point because it seems to be a paradox.

A player in this case is 'honorable' because they're volunteering to play. Not being obligated.

Therefore it's not "unfair" if they get injured. It was their choice to try...

 

thats because what he's saying doesn't make sense

 

It's unfair because there are players choose not to play for their country, because it is low risk. They pick low risk over honor. Frankly, it makes sense for them. but in a way, it is encouraging players to be less honorable because they may choose low risk over honor.

Obligation eliminate this factor, you no longer have to choose between the two. Basically you eliminate the honor part out of the equation.

 

Any idea if the Brazil game will be on NBA TV?

 

espn is going to show all of the exhibition games for team USA. i doubt it will be on NBA tv

 

Let me push your idea further. All American citizens should be subject to the draft to play for the national team, just like the draft in war time.

Yeah, if you really don't want to play, you can run to Canada or intentionally incapacitate yourself. :grin:

 

what the hell is this, are we North Korea now

if people don't want to play a basketball tournament, they have the freedom to do so whatever their reason might be.

The player who wants to play accepts the inherent risks, it has nothing to do with fairness

 

So the team with veteran players that are putting on extra miles by basically playing another quarter season worth of tough games should then have to sacrifice their summers to play for the national team?

Not gonna happen.

 

So it's more fair to force certain players to risk injury than to let players choose whether they want to? Fair to who, exactly?

 

There are a few reasons behind my idea:

1. With the NBA championship team, team chemistry isn't a problem. With the weak competition at international level, they don't have to practice as much as the current team. This reduces the risk of injuries.

2. The team is more coherent, they practice throughout the season with each other and familiar with the practice routines. If they simply keep the same practice routine, the risk of injury is also reduced. How often do you see players have severe injuries during regular season practices? This also reduces the level of internal competition within players on the team for playtime, and further minimize of the risk of injury.

3. It's mandatory only for the championship team. There are a lot of freedom in life, but you also have a lot of obligations. Tax for instance is one. Honor to play for your country given to a team that just received the highest honor of the national league makes sense.

4. It prevents players having to pick between honor and injury risk. With the increasing amount of injuries occurring, fewer and fewer players would want to choose honor over injury risk. One cause of that is the team will have fewer elite players. The other is it encourages players to value honor less and less.