Just think about this Dream team, next time you want another star on the Rockets.

That's why it's best that MoT come off the bench. We'll need his offensive spark.

 

we should zone much much more. If jvg will break out of his damn shell, we could adapt and most teams would have to shoot over the top. if there is one thing i have learned from the olympics, its that nobody shooots well anymore in the nba.

 

Did you watch the team last year? Everybody was shooting over the top. We were one of the best opponents FG% teams in the NBA, and one of the worst at defending the three pointer. While we didn't technically play a zone, our defense collapsed on the paint quite well. If we didn't have such a weak link at the 1, the D would have been even better. We'll have to see how our defense is without Cat and Cato in the lineup.

 

I'm not going to go through this **** again. see the mo taylor thread.

 

Errr... too many stars had nothing to do with the debacle in Greece.

1. Lack of outside shooting.
2. Lack of a legit point.
3. The players weren't all that good to begin with.

If you were to pick a strongest American XI, only Duncan and *maybe* Iverson would be there from this crop.

If Shaq, Kobe, McGrady, Dunca, Garnett... etc... had gone to Athens and lost, you'd have a point.

 

You know Mo T might have helped team USA and plays like a lot of the international 4s. His outside shooting is a lot better than Odom or Boozer, and his range is right around the internatinal line. He might have been able to park himself just past the top of the key and have opened things up for TD as a C.

 

He cant touch Odom thats just stupid Boozer is just a little better than him. MoT cant play defense either.

 

Those 3 things are role-player stuff.

They lacked specialists. Good bench players and specialists is what doomed them, and that's exactly what role players do. They fill in for the stars' defficiencies.

 

True, but the NBA is an individual player's league, not a league where team play is practiced or even promoted. The NBA's changed the rules of basketball to the point where what we're seeing night in and night out really isn't basketball anymore.

 

This was discussed extensively over the course of last season. The Rocket's effective field goal % defense, which accounts for 3 pointers, was either first or second in the NBA.

They gave up those three pointers by design.

Francis defense also has been discussed - extensively. His performance last year was average, at worst.

 

Really? Nobody in the NBA can shoot? Thats news to me...












Just to name a few, but there are many others in the NBA that can shoot really well.

 

Come on DaneB. You knew what he meant. Shooting skills are down, over-all, especially from our new breed "ISO scorers" (...and, this is only *one* part of other issues).

 

That is why we are Euro-tizing the game

Zones. . . .next they will do away with 3 seconds and get a trapazoid lane

Zone help the Euros alot
1. Helps weak defenders - biggest rip on Euros
2. Shooting over the top beats zones - Biggest strength of the Euros


Rocket River

 

Guess the NBA teams wouldn't fare too well with NCAA rules either (exclusive use of zones; forcing passing over isolations).

Please, no more excuses. Either learn it, or lose!

The statement, "They don't have defenders" isn't the main issue for the Olympics (or other International leagues) using college rules. It's because it limits ISOs, clear-outs and individual play and promotes team play. Even then, you can still be a great individual defender. And you can still be a great iso-player (regardlss if the zone helps or hurts your game respectively). But you will be FORCED to learn *other* aspects of the game as well. Aspects that the US players are clearly weak on.

So, while you say, "Zone help the Euros alot." I say, "Sharing the ball (more team play) outside shooting hurts the USA a lot." So, either improve on this, or keep losing.

The "iso-ONLY" player will be a dying breed. Just like the dinosaurs. And good riddance.

And you can bet, that if the International teams are criticized for "bad defense" now, they will listen and improve on it given time. And NBA apologists will be running out of excuses for their own flaws.

 

If you do not like Mo T. that would put you in a large group, however he came in off the bench and never complained and his job was not to pass it was to score, so he was a role player that knew his role.

The USA team was not picked to play as a team, they were picked by someone, that will not want credit for it now, as too who they had shoe contracts with an the name recognition.

James and Anthony will be stars in the years to come, but does nobody think we have maybe a couple players in the nba that have the experence to adapt to the difference in rules a little bit better?

They picked players that do not fit togather and then have them play for a coach that changes for no-one, the players have two weeks to adapt to how he wants it done. Blame the players if you want, I think it was doomed from the selection of the players.

 

Bottom line Tucker, the USA team was made up of NBA all stars that proved they couldn't even begin to understand the concept of team basketball when team basketball was their only chance to win. It was the same story two years ago in Indianapolis. The rest of the world gets credit from me for improving, but the NBA players are still light years ahead of the rest of the world in athleticism. They just don't know how to use it because since they were 14, they've been celebrities whether we're talking high school, college, or pro and their coaches did not have the guts to or will to tell their celebrities that for all their athleticism, they really knew very little about how the game was meant to be played.

Have you noticed the decline in NBA ratings lately (and be assured they will fall further after the performance by this year's Olympic team)? Have you ever talked to one of these people that decided they weren't going to watch the NBA anymore? They usually tell you it's because the NBA really isn't basketball anymore and as much as I have grown to love the NBA in my lifetime, I have to agree. It can be pretty at times, but in my more mature age I have come to respect the more pure college game than the NBA. I would love to see the NBA pull the rug out from beneath the Iverson's and Francis' of the league by suddenly changing the rules back tot he way they were that would make it harder to impossible for these types of players to emerge as stars. Can anyone see Francis driving the lane against the Bad Boys of the late 80's? Me either. And that's the folly of the players we pick as stars today. The rules have been changed to the point where they almost cant fail and that sucks. Now to the NBA's credit, you get the feeling they know this and they know it is hurting their ratings with the recent implementation of the zone (which NBA teams have failed to latch on to yet effectively) and with their seeming pursuit of a minor league.

Now that's not to say that there aren't some American born NBA players in the league that know how to play the game right. It's just that there aren't that many of them and we choose not to put them up on a pedastal. In fact, we tend to trash them for being "too fundamental" which is one of the phrases I absolutley can't stand. I'm for giving the big men 10 fouls and allowing them to throw these guards to the floor Lambeer style for a couple of seasons. Whatever it takes to provide players with the motivation they need to develop their skills beyond middle school. It's quite clear that the coaches are near powerless to instill such discipline in the current state of the game.

 

No, they're player things. Anything you can find that a roleplayer does well, you can find a star somewhere that does it better.

The squad selected was unbalanced and mediocre. That has nothing to do with them being "stars."

 

I wouldn't complain either making 8 mill a year.

 

While it is and certainly will be chic to bash the NBA player as a pampered, self-serving, fundamentally unsound basketball doofus, the REAL finger of blame should go to those morons at USA Basketball that picked this team: A team with NO center, NO legitimate shooters and a rigid inflexible coach who refused to allow his players to play to their strengths. In fact, all of USA Basketball should be canned for this incredible f-up. What is sad is that it will be the players who will get tarred with the blame and the sigma of losing when the blame has to go to those at the top.

Manu Ginobli put it best when he explained that the NBA players play under rules that highlight individual talent whereas in international play, team play is emphasized. You just can't throw a group of guys together in a month an expect them to contend let alone win against national teams that are together for much longer periods of time playing under international rules. Look at the USA women's team where you had several players from the last Olympics playing plus the fact they got to have much more international game experience and it showed.

I see the pendelum swinging back in the NBA with the allowing of the zone defense which will force a re-emphasis on shooting. But to TRULY increase the fundamental knowledge and skill level in the NBA, the college game has to be revitalized. It used to be that players learned HOW to play the game in college BEFORE they reached the NBA. Now, you have all of these HS players going directly into the league with little or no training in the fundamental aspects of the game. They are selcted on the basis of their ATHLETIC ability or the MARKETING ability to sell stuff and not on their ability to play the game. LeBron James is the postchild for this trend. He was a multi-millionaire before he even shot his first shot in the league. In Athens, his lack of basketball knowledge was exposed when he faced guys who knew how to play the game. Now I'm not singling out LeBron because he only took advantage of the system as it exists today. The current players have NO CHOICE but to live and work within the confines of that system that's in place and THAT'S where the blame should be assessed. You want a better caliber of player? Fix the current system!

If you rank the priorities of the current system, it would go something like this: (1) Marketing/Merchandising (2) Ticket Sales (3) Basketball. This is a league that is stocked full of guys who can run like deer and jump clear out of the gym. Unfortunately for them (and us), they cannot play the game of basketball because in the current scheme of things, that's simply not a priority.