I don't know. Our defense was the biggest problem, and those players you plan on adding are all below average to downright terrible defensive players.
I dont think defense was our problem at all! its the inability to play the team offensive game that led us to the loss against Greece. We need better shooters who can make shots consistently and are NOT streaky, we need slashers who can break down the D and inside presence not named Howard!
Actually the problem was free-throws, they missed too many. Add Kobe, Add Redd and JJ and the team is fine. They played a terrible game and only lost because of their inability to make free-throws.
you don't think defense was our problem at all in a game where we let a team shoot 14/18 in one quarter and finish shooting 31/44 in the last 3 quarters or so? a game where we didn't get a stop for about a full quarter? i can't imagine you actually watched the game and came to that conclusion. did we have to let them score on every single possession to make defense a problem? then you add our inability to play the team offensive game (i guess b/c you're just parroting was everyone always says) even though we scored 95 points in a game where we missed a bunch of free throws, had little to no fast break points off of turnovers, and didn't shoot that well from 3. we played the team game just fine and got tons of good looks, otherwise we couldn't have scored the 95 we did, which should have been plenty for victory in a non-up tempo game.
Well, defense was a secondary problem created by having too many big egos that have to have minutes. That caused the coaches not to play the defensive diggers, especially when Greece was ripping us a new one with the pick and roll. Shane got 13 minutes that game and he should have played 25-30. Melo was knocking down the long shot but getting kicked in the ... defensively. James, Wade, and Melo were ineffective on the floor together. Too much talent, and too little defense. Greece killed us strategically, with their brains. We weren't even efficient offensively. That team with that kind of talent should have averaged 100 ppg. Yeah, I know the quarters are 10 minutes. But that's too much offensive talent, too much explosive scoring on the floor. We should have averaged 100 ppg. That would have miniaturized how bad we were defensively. But we couldn't get it together offensively either. It should have started at the top with Lebron handling the bball, primarily, dominately, 30 mpg. And put a couple sharpshooters around him. Forget Paul and Kirk. Lebron could penetrate just as well, is just as good a passer, and he can raise up and throw it down even against 7 footers. Besides that, realistically, he's arguably the best player on the planet right now. Let him create. Have a big, burly center like Curry set the high pick for him, a guy that can dominate with his size and weight so that if the ball is swung to him on the roll, it's a dunk and a foul. Not Bosh. Bosh is a nice player but....players like him and Wade get their dunks/layups off of quickness, not power. We had no power. And where was Elton Brand???? Your backcourt should have been Lebron, Melo, and Ray Allen with the backups DWade for Lebron, and another couple of shooters spot up shooters for Ray and Melo (not Joe Johnson, Paul, and Hinrich, 3 guys whose game is predicated on penetration and the pull up jumper, not the spot up jumper). Look at Joe Johnson's shooting percentages compared to the other guards in the league. There are at least 10-15 American shooting guards that are better shooters than he is. What is he doing on the team? In the international game, you've got to get those shooters out there to open up the floor. You can't throw a bunch of guys out there that have the dunk mentality, that is they all want to go to the rim and throw it down. Because it clogs up the paint and eventually your lack of shooting gets you because the other team is at the other end getting 3 on 2 and packing in the defense and forcing those dunk shots into contested short shots over 2 or 3 defenders. Why was Melo the leading scorer for our team? It's because he was bombing the 3 ball. At the 4, you throw out guys like Shane Battier that can even stretch the floor more with the 3 ball and then you let guys like Brand, DHoward, operate the post. Except you get rid of a guy like Bosh and you get a true offensive low post center in a guy like Eddy Curry. He's probably the best back to the basket American big man right now since Shaq is too old and will be too old in 2 years. Howard is the player that should have gotten minimal minutes on this team. The point is....you play one big post up player with 4 shooters, not 2 slashers and 2 shooters. You play 4 shooters. Who beat us? We got beat by a team that shot shot shot the ball. Instead of Joe Johnson, how about guys like Ray Allen? Instead of kirk hinrich, how about guys like Mike Bibby? Instead of Paul how about guys like Michael Redd? Do we really need those point guards to handle the ball? How many times did you see teams pressing in FIBA? How many times could we not get the ball out of the backcourt with James, Ray Allen, and Bibby out there.......if somebody did press us??? The international game puts the emphasis on skills, not athleticism. You gotta bring the shooters.
That sounds like you're saying coaching was the problem that led to defense being a problem. In this thread basically we have Offense, Defense and Coaching being brought up as primary reasons for the U.S. losing.
well all the egos apparently didn't get in the way for the first 15 minutes of the game when we shut down greece. why would that be why we couldn't play it later? and playing defensive diggers would obviously hurt the offense as well. well james, wade, and melo were really good on the floor together against argentina. and greece must've blown their brains out before they played spain. once the shots stopped falling, they weren't so smart. what do you mean, we averaged 103.6 ppg for the tournament and were by far the leader in that category. we missed free throws and open 3's. we got all the shots we could hope for basically. i pretty much agree. lebron is fine as the point guard. paul was great in the early games but the better the other teams got the less and less his distribution talents showed up. he basically became an offensive liability because he couldn't shoot and couldn't get inside which lebron could at will. i don't see how we let curry within a mile of this team. he's not much of a rebounder, doesn't seem to have much touch or shooting ability, and doesn't seem to like playing defense. he's like the anti-international player. joe johnson was an excellent 3 point shooter on the suns, shooting 48% one season. and he was one of the most consistent on the team. if you're arguing we should get even better guys like allen and redd, then i agree obviously we should, but redd didn't go for some reason after being invited (injury?) and maybe allen didn't want to (b/c i'm sure he would've been invited). the problem is there are too many international big men that can post up someone like battier. they don't have nba level post games but in a one on one setting where everyone has to pay attention to their teammates at the 3 point line, they can eventually get a decent shot and make it. then wade, lebron, and kobe would never see the floor, which would be bad for us. 2 or 3 shooters is all we need, especially if they are redd or allen level shooters. 2 guys who will kill you every single time you leave them open. people will always have to double and/or play help defense on our kobe's and lebron's and wade's. as long as they have someone to throw it out to at the 3 point line who will make teams pay, our offense would just hum along. right now our O is already really good even with just average "shooters" like hinrich and melo. with tournament of the americas type shooters like allen, bibby, and even tmac and vince we could kill even without defense. true, but greece is a worse shooting team than we are. they aren't even predicated on shooting, it's supposed to be their D that gets them through. in terms of beating greece, we brought enough shooting. unfortunately, their shooting picked way up and ours was down for the game. first i don't think they'll leave the idea of needing one really good point guard, so paul will probably come back, but i don't think the guys that put the team together didn't know we needed shooters. i'm sure they'd love having allen and redd. but it didn't work out that they could be there. what can we do in that circumstance? i agree, penetrating, pass-first point guards weren't really needed to get us shots (though hinrich is a pretty good shooter and real good at D so he's better than paul for international ball). our athletes are so superior that we throw defenses off balance no matter what. even in a zone, a guy like lebron draws two guys. as long as their is good ball movement like there was this year, we'll always get good shoots, which we did this year. with better shooters to finish off the open looks, we'd go from really leading the tournament in points to blowing everyone else out (though the D may suffer and the point differential may not increase, but i think it would). but i think everyone knows this. they'd love to have all the shooters in the world to pair up with lebron and kobe and wade and i'm sure they'd love duncan and garnett to wanna play, but they have to work with what they have. having said all that, offense was in no way a problem aside from needing even better shooters (we still shot 6th out of 24 on 3's and none of the top 5 were medal contenders). D and a hot shooting team took us down. then we whooped argentina when neither of those things happened in the next game.
did you see how NO ONE made their shots until the end?! man did you see how many dunks Wade missed? how many open shots joe johnson missed?! did you see the 2nd and 3rd quarter when team USA struggled OFFENSIVELY. ALL that builds frustration. IF they were making shots, their defense would have been a lot better. team USA played good defense the whote tournament, why couldn't they do that then?
Take off Jamison and Joe Johnson and replace them with Micheal Redd and Josh Howard.... Gold medal. --Rocketman
To me, Team USA needs to add the following: 1. more experienced steady player, currently the team seems too young and young players tend to freak out when the going gets tough. 2. more great role players. Battier is the only token role player on that team. You need more than one of those. 3. more interior defense. Brand is too small, Miller not a defender, and Howard too raw. So, I'd hope for Kobe and Chauncey to be available; invite Tayshaun Prince and Chris Duhon to join the team to be the role players; my big man addition would be Rasheed Wallace. Guys I'd consider dropping are Jamison, Miller, Paul, and maybe James.
I have an idea for someone. The one type of player who was missing is someone with unlimited range. Michael Redd might be good, but that makes the defense even worse if you replace any of the guards on the roster with him. Since Jamison added no value to the team, I'd replace him with a forward. And is there one with unlimited range? Well yeah...
