I have no doubt Kerr will tighten things up when the knockout rounds start and I expect AD to play at least 25-30 mins. Until then, they'll give Embiid every chance to adapt and become effective. One comment on Ant: I missed his outburst in the 1st half because I was working. What I saw in the 2nd half was the physicality of Dyson Daniels getting into his head and sapping his aggression. Hopefully he learns from this. Was it just me or did LeBron look really old against Australia?
Because none of them tweet disparaging remarks about Nike? Your example doesn’t work. They aren’t black balling guy repped by another shoe company, they are black balling guys who speak out against Nike. It’s about sending a message to keep quie, think the nba memo with morey china. Kyrie and Jaylen.
Ok, sure so then where's Jalen Brunson? He's Nike's NYC poster boy and just finished 5th in MVP voting - surely he would rank higher up on the Phil Knight food chain (btw who is 86 and makes Joe Biden look like Reed Sheppard). What was his crime?
What Kerr could also do is get these guys to play harder. He can't allow all this talk about them being the best collection of talent ever to get to their heads. Davis has been the best player so far. Kerr's probably looking at the team thinking that the only guys who truly know how to play are either old (LeBron, Curry, and Durant) or on a lower tier (Holiday, Bam, and White). They don't need Embiid. He could be necessary against Jokic if he can play a role-player role on offense. This team will not revolve around him because they don't need him. Play defense, rebound, set screens, and hit open shots is all he needs to do for Team USA to be at its best. Kerr should consider benching him and playing Davis and Bam, but Embiid was probably promised an important role for the team. Edwards needs someone to teach him to be consistent from quarter to quarter, half to half, game to game, series to series, etc. So far in his career, that's been his thing. Maybe overcoming physicality is part of it because Dallas also took him out with physicality. LeBron is old, so his defense will be crap. Once the NBA season starts, this has to be the year he starts playing his age, similar to how bad Ronaldo looked when he played against world-class players for Portugal during the Euro Cup. Curry is looking old on defense as well. I think LeBron is the one who has to play because he is easily the best passer on the team. The best lineup will probably be Holiday, White, Tatum, LeBron (or Durant), and Davis. At the very least, that has to be the get-out-of-trouble lineup.
Just wanted to bump this and say I have really enjoyed watching these games. I know they're at inconvenient times for those of us living in the US, but it's way worth checking out if possible beyond just watching clips. Almost like what I wish the allstar game was.
Brunson is a short ball dominant player and wouldn’t make sense on Team USA. Brunson is like a way better Isiah Thomas - he’s gonna fizzle out. Jaylen Brown makes perfect sense and is the finals MVP - but he tweets disparaging remarks about Nike so he got black balled by a Nike sponsored program. it is what it is.
The same reason that you think Jaylen Brown is a better basketball fit than Jalen Brunson makes Derrick White a better choice than Brown. White is a much less ball-dominant player than Brown, much more likely to both distribute the ball for assists and also be on the receiving end of assists than Brown - in short he's a better ball mover and connector, but much less of an ISO threat - and is also a 2x All Defensive team player (0x for Brown) - -how is that not as good or better fit on a team that's literally loaded with ball dominant super stars whose only weakness is that some of them are not elite defenders?
I just watched the USA vs Serbia highlights, and uh, why is Langston Galloway and some dude named Potter on this team? Did I miss something?
Kerr is going to get the lifelong Doc Rivers treatment, regardless of what he does next and fails at.
The fact that they have trailed at any point after the first quarter is embarrassing. If they lose, they don’t deserve the gold.
Not going to lie I was rooting for that JT Thor 3 to go in. Btw is Chef Curry cooked? We'll find out I guess.
