1. putting Marbury on at all. 2. bringing no defensive stoppers -- no Prince, no Stacey Augmon-type 3. leaving off shooters like Michael Redd or even Allan Houston for guys like Stoudamire, who contribute nothing to international play 4. Putting on James & Anthony for marketing purposes. 5. This is his second consecutive failure in a major international competitiion. Couple that with his resume of Vancouver GM, and mediocre coach = see you later stu.
you know, it doesn't matter in this game but the bias for the opponent against team USA makes dick bavetta look like a laker-hater. we were being outshot something like 23 to 7 at the free throw line at one point. virtually any and all penetrations by PR result in free throws. absolutely nothing we do gets free throws. is collins being paid by the officials or something? every horrible call is greeted with "in the nba that's a (insert foul name here) foul." dddddddddooooooooooooggggggggggggggggggggg ****. arroyo drives straight into odom, foul on odom. aruso (sp?) drives into 4 guys, foul. arroyo looks like he gets blocked by wade, foul. duncan gets hit underneath, or they don't call that here. odom gets slapped on the arm and makes the layup, no call. apparently if it's an inside play by us, there's no foul. when PR takes it in, well then obviously it's a foul according to the refs and it's to be expected according to collins. and then dwyane just took it in and got crushed and got no call. would it matter for the outcome of this game? no. will it matter when we, the inside, non outside shooting team, is getting outshot at the line by a 3 to 1 margin in a close game? yes. and it's embarrassing to be that biased.
i suppose all the puerto rican guys on this team will be schooling him in a few months once the nba season starts?
Even if your analysis was right, which I dont really agree with, Stu doesn't choose the team by himself. Our best players need to be out there. The world doesn't suck at basketball anymore.
I guess the future of the NBA is going to sleep and letting b-rate players run backdoor cuts on you then. Jerry Sloan should be happy..... btw, is it a coincidence since Tim Duncan changed his facial appearance to llook like Karl Malone he has started to suck? Nice travel there!
Lesson for Yao Ming, if you are inefficient on offense end, go get rebounds. Duncan can still help his team with tremendous rebounding ability even he can't buy a basket today.
Stu is the chair of the selection committee and has been the de facto head of the Mens sr. national team for some time. If you don't think he should be held accountable for its repeated failure and underachievment, well, I don't know who else could be. But if my analysis is wrong, go ahead and tell me what's wrong with it.
The thing is that guys like Amare will have very difficult time in getting a spot on the national team in the Europe. He should feel lucky that he is an American and can be a millionaire.
We don't need our best players. We need our best TEAM. These guys on the floor do not mesh well together. Richard Jefferson is our best 3pt% shooter, and he was 47th in the league last season.
I think it does matter. If anything most of those guys on the puerto rico team would be in foul trouble and sitting on the bench while team USA takes over. Foul calls can completely take the game over. Being that there are only 5 fouls in international play, fouls make a big difference. The fact that interational teams can guard us so well in international play w/o fouling is just too difficult to swallow. It should never have come down to the fouls but I can see the difference in mentalities when the refs make you think everything you do is a foul.
Ladies and Gentlemen: We've all had that age old question in the back of our heads for years now: Take away Jason Kidd, what kind of player would Richard Jefferson be? Answer: See performance vs. Puerto Rico
I"ll give credit to PR though. They are playing a smart game and taking full advantage of the international rules. As much as I like to root for underdogs as when me and my friends go onto the court we try to out hustle and out play the competition but I hate to see the US lose like this.
