LOL. No one who understands basketball will ever take Kidd over Magic/Stockton. Of course everything can change if somehow Kidd manages to single handedly lead the Nuts to 3 NBA championships and he averages 15 apg during those runs.
I think the days of decimating the competition are over. The International players are better and the team we brought was still pretty good. While our jumpshooting was most suspect, we also looked pretty foolish on defense many times. I do feel we can win in 2008, but I think it's never going to be easy again.
while not a shocker. this is pretty depressing. our guys played hard but it wasn't enough. hopefully, we can learn from this experience and take the gold back in 2008.
BTW, AI is the only player on the US team that left everything on the court. Cannot say that for the rest of the players, even TD.
If KG going to the charity basketball event brings in enough money to help out a couple more Houston youngsters go to college, it's not all for naught. TMac is on the verge of signing the biggest contract in his basketball life. The same goes for Ray Allen. These guys risk a great deal if they get injured because it would be a cold day in hell if Les Alexander signs TMac to an extension if he gets a season-ending injury in Athens. I don't bring the dislike for the players who didn't go. I don't bring the dislike for the guys who did go and didn't perform up to expectations. The fact is Team USA could have killed any of the teams over there if they broadened their selection pool to encompass the veterans in the NBA who would love to go because they aren't the bigtime famous guys like KG and Duncan. It's the arrogance of committee selecting the team that doomed Team USA. Maybe it was their intention for Team USA to lose because countries all over the world have their confidence raised in the sport of basketball which in turns moves the NBA forward to its ultimate goal of a global NBA. How many Latin American teenagers are now out on the courts balling because of how they saw Arroyo and Ginobli play in the Olympics? It's probably a lot. Basketball has become the favorite sport for a lot of teenagers around the world overtaking soccer.
Enjoying the discussion you guys are having... On a side note, how much would it suck if Lithuania, which is currently losing to Italy by 8 late in the 3rd, has to play the US for the bronze? Lithuania is the best team in the tournament, they beat the US again and they come home empty handed, very uncool.
say dumb **** all you want but something tells me yao hasn't received even near the horrific ref treatment duncan has. duncan gets star calls in the nba, he's getting anti-star calls over here. 4 of his 5 fouls were absolute jokes. guy hanging on his back? offensiv foul. standing there for a rebound, loose ball foul. doesn't touch gino on a drive, foul. moving ****ing pick!!! that's like calling palming in the nba or something. it happens 4 or 5 times every trip down the court from international teams. what a joke. then gino. on his 4 (yeah ****ing 4!) and 1's, was he touched on any of them? the most contact may have been when he kicked his foot into wade and flopped on the floor. they showed a replay of everyone and there was no contact on any of the 3 two point and 1's. gino apparently is a God in international ball. but my favorite play was watching marbury get completely upended in front of everyone and no call being made. awesome. though he did get them back with an equally bad call where he smacks a guy in the face with the ref looking right at it and they don't call it. are these refs just complete morons. it may not have made us win, but losing duncan for basically the whole game on bull**** fouls that are not called on anyone else in the olympics is ridiculous. does every team have to play out of their mind against us? argentina shoots as bad as we do the whole tournament then drains 50% of their 3's today. everyone on the team is hitting, manu shoots something like 9/11, that point guard who apparently had been playing badly starts draining 3's from everywhere. it's like they can play like crap against other teams but against us everything works. and every time we face an nba player in international competition (dirk, manu, arroyo) they just tear us up. for some reason it never seems to translate as nicely to the NBA. and finally, stern needs to somehow make it mandatory that the best players show up (or give not so subtle hints that things won't go so well for them ref-wise in the next season). we showed at the qualifying tourney we can still mop the floor with the world. and that team didn't have shaq, kobe, or kg i believe. that's 3 of our top 5 and we killed everyone. we've now been embarrassed in two straight competitions. the world needs to be taught a lesson and be decimated as Clutch alluded to so we can get some respect back. trust me, the world still hasn't caught up with our best but it they don't come and we assemble the team badly, they can beat us and will. bring in the big guns and establish our place on top again. i don't wanna dog the new guy but thanks tmac for not showing up. and kg. and vince. and shaq. kobe is the only one with a legitimate reason for not going. damn this sucks but it was inevitable. i didn't even think we'd get a medal so at least we still have a shot at that. and at least we ruined whiny-ass pau gasol's olympics.
yeah but how many guys have ever played as hard as AI ever in the history of the NBA, International play, etc. ?
Pau at least showed some passion by representing his country at the Olympics, and he is one of the top 2-3 players at the games along with Yao and Ginobili.
Wow, post of the century. I agree with everything, especially about Pau. When the game was over i was like, "at least we did better than those Spanish whiners."
I just saw Marbury's slap in the face against the Argentinian guy...with something like 90 seconds to go...that was deliberate and classless!
Duncan hasn't adjusted well to the FIBA rules. He played like Bateer in NBA, very foul prone because of his NBA habits. He should spend at least one week to study FIBA rules before stepping on the court. He has been in foul trouble in all the games. I don't think all refs have something against him in particular. He got what he deserved so please don't whine like a loser. BTW: he's not that effective even on the court. Since US players can't shoot, International teams will pack the middle anyway. His Olympics performance is very disappointing.
even with those guys i don't think we'll be decimating guys. we would definitely be better but the international teams are truly teams while we have to throw guys together. if we had a set team that could play and practice together as much as the rest of the world i think it would be different.
I don't think Ginobili practices much more with the Argentinian team now than the US guys do with each other...and most of the Argentinian players play abroad, too, so there should not be that much of a difference.
Dwayne Wade has to be the most over hyped player in the Olympics. First Walton was pumping this guy up during the preliminary games, then Doug Collins. Can anyone tell me what this guy does that makes him a star? He is still a distant third behind Lebron and Carmello. Larry Brown needs his sanity questioned for not playing Lebron. What does Wade do better than Lebron. Pass?? Shoot?? Defend?? Finish?? Anything?? It's ridiculous.
I read that this is pretty much the same team that beat the US in 2002. I think there is a big difference.
Even though Garnett, Kobe and T-Mac did not show up, it's not like the US sent a bunch of scrubs...practically all of the players who were sent are/were or will be all-stars during their career - and you still had arguably the world's best player in Tim Duncan there. At this point, I think Lithuania will win the bronze medal game.
When are the next World Championships? I hope we can do better then and maybe even reclaim our throne
