Manu Ginobili: The days of Team USA's dominance are "part of the past". SINGAPORE (Ticker) - Manu Ginobili rates the United States as one of the favorites to win this year's FIBA World Championship, but the Argentine guard insists the days of Team USA's dominance are "part of the past." Speaking in from the site of where Olympic champions Argentina will be competing in the Singapore Cup this weekend against Spain, Slovenia and defending world champions Serbia & Montenegro, the San Antonio Spur believes the gap in the talent level between U.S. basketball and the rest of the world is gradually diminishing. "I don't think you're ever going to see again a U.S. team that beats everyone else by a big margin. That was 15 years ago or whenever it was," Ginobili said. "Now basketball has changed and many of us are playing with them (in the NBA) every single day so we're getting closer. "Even though they are very good, beating everyone else by 30 points. That's part of the past." However, given the amount of talent at the Americans' disposal, Ginobili is not about to write off their chances of regaining their first FIBA World Championship crown since 1994 although he believes that much will depend on their team chemistry in Japan. "We know that they have a lot of young talent but we don't know how they will play together, he said. "We'll only know that when the World Championship starts. "Of course the United States will always be among the favorites because of the talent that they have like LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Carmelo Anthony. However, basketball is about the team, it's not only about the players. As long as they play together, they play good defence and they play as a team, then they're going to have a big chance of winning it." As for his own team, Ginobili is confident that Argentina is hitting form at just the right time as it seeks to win its first World Championship since a triumph at the inaugural tournament in 1950. "Of course the first couple of weeks (of training) were hard because everybody was rusty and trying to get back into shape and getting used to playing with each other again," he said. "We're now playing in the same way that we want to be at the World Championship." Along Ginobili, Argentina has the core of its team back from Athens, including small forward Andres Nocioni, who has since gone on to great success with the Chicago Bulls. Up front, the South Americans still have Luis Scola and Fabricio Oberto to provide interior scoring and rebounding. The only question mark for Argentina is at point guard, where former Temple player Pepe Sanchez and young Pablo Prigioni are untested. "Every time we play, we want to win, that's for sure," Ginobili said. "It may be the World Championship, the Olympics, the NBA Championship or the South American Championship, but we always want to win." Argentina face Serbia & Montenegro in their opening game of the Singapore Cup on Friday evening, before taking on Slovenia on Saturday and Spain on Sunday at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
Hmmmm, conversely, I wonder what will be the best international team, excluding US players: Starting lineup: PG: Nash SG: Ginobili SF: ??? PF: Dirk C: Yao Currently, I'm not too sure who's the best at SF excluding US players........and I think Manu is an SG right?
When was the last time the US won a major World/ Olympic Championship? Was it 2000 with Rudy T? (yeah, I could google it) I don't understand how the US can even be considered in the top 3 right now.
They won the bronze medal at the olympics. Isn't that the definition of top 3? Beyond that, they are the favorites for the gold medal in the WCs. I don't see anyway you could rank them less than 3rd.
On paper yea they are but other than that it could be argued bc supposedly the world is catching up in terms of talent
IMHO the phrase 'the world is catching up in terms of talent' is just an excuse. It might be catching up only in terms of quantity of teams capable of winning medal today in comparison to 10+ years ago. 2nd in 1992 Olympics was Croatia led by Drazen Petrovic, Toni Kukoc & Dino Radja among other European stars at the time. IMHO that team blows ANY of today's international teams.
I think the US is the best team. They're going to wear teams out with depth. Teams with size can score, but the US has so many weapons and is so tough physically and mentally that they're going to grind out wins against teams that give them trouble.
I don't buy that at all. The US is so deep in talent it's not even funny. It can be argued that we're not even send out best players over there (Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Shaq, T-Mac, Kobe, Kidd, Kenyon Martin, Jermaine O'Neal, Paul Pierce, Amare Stoudemire, Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, etc., etc.)
They just owned Lithuania... I guess the two keys to this team beating quality opponents is making threes (13-28 last night, 10-30 against Brazil), and playing defense (Lithuania shot 43%, 29% from three, Brazil 45%). One more warm up game to go and then the real tournament begins...
Agreed. It's more us falling back to Earth. Look at the talent of the first Dream Team; Magic, Bird, Jordan, Barkley, Drexler, Ewing, Stockton, Malone... Outrageous. That team, and even the 96 squad with Olajuwon and Shaq would wipe the floor with ANYTHING we could dream of sending out nowadays.
He's actually talking about people considering Spain as a favorite to win the WC, but you can see the parallels. It's in an interview here. There's actually some interesting things on the FIBA site, as long as we're educating ourselves on international ball.
Watched lives game on stars Sports Asia between Argentina vs Spain and Serbia vs Slovenia Singapore the other day. All i can say is World Champ Serbia and Olympics Champion Argentina are in terrible formed. Getting thrashed by Slovenia(came from behind for the win) and Spain respectively. Looks like Spain will be the only threat to Team USA for this tournament. Brazil has their moment but i dont think Team USA will has another cold shooting night like the day agianst Brazil. Most likely is will be USA vs Spain final which personally i would like to see!!
Manu Ginobili: The days of Team USA's dominance are "part of the past". Apparently so are the days of Team Argentina's dominance. I think Argentina players need more fundamentals and teamwork.
