Hoops in France, and dispelling myths.

Excellent post Kim! Much better than I could have said it.

 

dang, nice to see someone say it so well. very good post.

 

Great post Kim. I hope it opens some people's eyes.

 

Good post Kim..
Though I have to add that you landed most potentially "Americanized" place. By that i mean that Nice, Marseille, Cannes, etc... are well known places for their cockyness and in your face kind of morons.
Understand me, I'm not saying the US culture or Americans are like that, but what ppl see and hear from US are the worst parts (ghettos, slang, violence, etc...).
Back to the subject, Me thinks the US team isn't that "Dreamy" of a team cause, like in the All Star game, it's mostly about popularity of the players than their game it self!

ALA

 

Nice post Kim. I forgot you moved to France. I'm sure that was an experience.

Is Grega still posting here. We he played pick-up with some of us he ISO'd nearly every time he had the ball, just like Cuttino. hehe He was a junior national for Slovenia and now plays for UofH.

Fundamental ball is still alive in the US. As others have said, the best "team ball" in the NBA still wins. Five of the league's best players in the NBA are rock solid in fundamentals and actually the epitome of fundamentals, not counting Shaq...although he is fundamentally fine for how big he is....good passer; good, fast low-post footwork.

Duncan, Garnett, Kidd, Kobe and TMac are all complete players.

In NCAAs, the best team ball generally does the best, no?

I can tell you that in Illinois high school bball (the best hs in the USA ), fundamentals is still alive and well. Peoria Manual won an unprecedented 4 titles in a row in the mid-90s and none of those players is in the NBA--meaning they didn't win with HS superstars. That was team ball with a great coach, and a coach's son PG. That was actually two teams...that is, the same guys didn't win all four in a row. Also look at the Shaun Livinston. He just won two titles in a row for Peoria Central, a school of 850 students going against the big Chicago teams. He got drafted #4 this year, and is being called a 6'7" pure PG with amazing court vision, passing and dribbling ability.

imso, fundamentals is being coached and learned in the USA. But defense wins in the NBA, and many coach's field defenders resulting in the best shooters not necessarily getting starter minutes. and also resulting in our best, most fundamentally solid PGs and Centers in college not even getting minutes in the NBA. Just because defense wins, and coaches start poor shooters like Bowen and Christie over Turkoglu and BJackson, doesn't mean Bowen and Christie are not as fundamentally strong players as Turkoglu (considering defense and smarts as equal to offensive skills)...they just can't shoot as well. Then you have defenders with no shooting skills like Cato and BWallace starting. I mean, don't you agree that Cato starting over MoT was a valid coach decision, even though MoT is the more fundamentally strong player. And every coach in the league would start BWallace at either PF or C.

 

HP, Sam, and others, you know I have a different view than y'all on this issue. I generally side with the "alarmists" about American basketball. The "apologists" always point to these facts, which I concedes are legit. 1) The best American players all have great fundamentals. 2) If the world basketball is so good, why aren't their stars tearing it up in the NBA?

However, imo, the apologists never adequately address the most obvious questions: If NBA basketball is so great, why are this bunch of NBA players losing? There are answers, of course. I call them excuses.

First excuse. We don't have the top players playing. Yeah, but these aren't scrubs. They are all above average NBA players. Most of them are stars or borderline stars. If the NBA is so great, how come they lose to Puerto freaking Rico by about 20 points? If Duncan plus Parker/Bowen/Turkoglu is one of the NBA championship contender, how come Duncan plus Marbury/Iverson/ Jefferson can't beat a team run by Carlos Arroyo?

Second excuse. They are inexperienced. Yeah, LeBron, Melo and Amare would've been college stars had they elected to stay in school. As I remember, our college stars used to beat the hack out of the world a couple of decades ago. Could it be that the college kids actually knew they were college kids while these young NBA stars think that they are the best players in the world?

Third excuse. This group is not a good mix. Yeah, but why? How come a group of stars can't play good basketball together? Doesn't that tell you something about the kind of players these NBA stars and borderline stars are? I thought stars are supposed to make teammates better. Isn't it logical to expect a group of stars making each other better?

There is, of course, the argument that they are not a good mix because they lack a certain type of players, namely, good shooters. But that begs the question. Why aren't good shooters selected? The clear answer is that because good shooters aren't stars in the NBA. They are role players. Doesn't THAT tell you something about what's important in the NBA?

HP brought up a good point: "Defense wins in the NBA, and many coach's field defenders resulting in the best shooters not necessarily getting starter minutes." Again, that begs the question, why aren't defenders selected? Why is defense so important in the NBA but this bunch of stars and borderline stars let Puerto freaking Rico score 92 points in 40 minutes? This is even more acute if you consider the fact that they are coached by none other than Larry Brown, the one NBA team that have the most feared defense.

Fourth excuse. They don't have continuity because they are just thrown together at the last minute. Yeah, but that's more or less the same problem facing all countries. It is true that other countries may have more stable national teams that play together for a long haul. But the fact is, these players, like the Americans, also play for different professional teams, in their regular time. Unlike the NBA players, many of these players play in different countries and different leagues. The NBA players at least have the benefit of playing against each other in a regular basis.



Enough of questioning the excuses. Let me question the two positive points usually point to by the apologists, which I mentioned at the beginning.

First, the best American players are great in fundamentals. It is so true. The question remains. Why are there so few of these players. I mean, are these bunch on the current Team USA great in fundamentals? If yes, why are they losing? If not, why is there such a big drop off between the top tier and the second tier? If the the country as a whole empahsizes fundamentals, shouldn't the difference between the top tier and the second tier be talent rather than fundamentals?

Second, if the world is so great, why aren't their players tearing it up in the NBA? That's a fair question. My guess is that the world still don't have enough talents (due to the lack of popularity of the sport) to be compatible with the US. And how well would these players on the current Team USA do if they were playing in, say, Euroleague? It's all speculation, of course, because none of them did. But if the top Euro players need a few years to adjust to the NBA, is it possible that many NBA stars/borderline stars would need the same amount of time to adjust to the Euro game? If so, who is to say which "type" of basketball is better than the other?

 

Easy,

You're right, these can be looked at excuses if you believe that Team USA should be dominating the world arena. If you believe the European teams are designed for international play and do it very well, so you just want Team USA to win, these aren't really excuses or apologies, these are problems...problems of why they can't win.

There's a much greater list of American's with great fundamentals than the 5 I listed. It's just that they don't all start versus the great defenders in the league and the guys with skills to create against those defenders. That opinion of mine is not an apology, it is an observation of what gets drafted and gets PT in a league where, to win a ring, you need to stop/slowdown guys like Magic/Worthy, Bird/McHale (which is what the 80's Detroit teams had to do) and Jordan, Shaq and Kobe, which is what the Knicks and Spurs had to do. GM/coaches just seem to choose defense to beat the superstar creators of the league and, conversely, who they choose as role players to surround those superstar creators. If they wanted to surround them with shooters, they could have been drafting more pure-shooters from college and Europe all this time. But they didn't. The best shooting teams still fail to beat the team's with the superstars.

As for why they don't field Team USA with defense, maybe it would work. But the trapezoid lane and shorter 3 gives weaker defenses with great shooters a chance to compete. Wider lanes has a leveling effect wrt great low post teams vs the likes of Dallas.

I can accept that you call a lot of this excuses, but to really be able to say that, it seems that you would also have to say that Detroit or a healthy Minnesota would not win the Gold Medal, if the Olympics replaced the NBA Playoffs. Do you believe Detroit would not win the Gold Medal? If you think they would, then doesn't that mean the NBA plays the best ball.

Do you think the Gold Medal team would win the NBA championship? If not, why not.

Here's another hypothetical: do you think the National Teams in soccer would beat the best Club teams in Europe? What about if they only practiced for a week every two years with just 6 warmup games.

 

I was surprised last night when Bob Costas took a moment after the "dream team" highlights to criticize the idiots who put this team together. All for marketing, no shooters, etc…

If Rudy could take a team college kids and CBAers to the bronze metal at the worlds certainly we should be able to take 2nd or 3rd team NBAers to an Olympic title.

And I totally agree that this whole 'streetball' label is nonsense...

 

thank God heyp is back and saying what i've said before, defense gets picked first. it's a double effect. teams play better defense and the defensive guy hurts the offense, now you've got better defense guarding worse offense, and voila, the NBA of today. if "basketball the right way" won more games, it would be who got picked to play and the style that dominates. GM's like their jobs, they'll pick who wins. right now, having a good defense is viewed as more important.

this is a very broad generalization so no one nitpick it with counterexamples, but it seems when you watch an 80's game, everyone's ticket onto the court was their jump shot. if you could shoot, you could play. whether you could guard anybody or rebound wasn't that important. now, more than ever, defense can be your ticket onto the court. you can get in someone's face, play hard, and stop people and help on the glass, you can play. whether or not you can shoot or play good offense is secondary.

i love it when people bring up magic and bird and mj then compare them to today's regular players and say they are not complete. what a crock. how about compare them to kobe, tmac, duncan, kg, shaq, kidd, the other o'neal, vince, bibby, etc. those are all very complete players. as for role players, have been, are, and always will be incomplete. that's why they're role players. the difference is in the past they were imcomplete on the defensive side, now it's often the offensive side. people like pretty jumpers and low quality D and high scores so they bash the players of today for playing differently, not for playing worse. there aren't any less pure shooters and "fundamental" players in the US today, they just don't make the NBA like they used to.

and like i've said at least 10 times since the italy game, i'm glad the "why aren't they dominating the NBA" question was brought up again. there is a clear disconnect b/t int'l ball and the NBA. saying one is more basketball than the other is wrong. saying the US still produces the best players isn't.

 

Would the Gold Medal team would win the NBA? I'll have to see how good the Gold Medal team is. Right now, it's just the beginning of the competition. But of course, to factor in the chemistry issue, you'll have to imagine that the team has the chance of playing together for at least a season or two.

An easier question is: Could Team USA beat Detroit or Minnesota if they played longer together? I'd say yes--if they played by NBA rules. They would dominate any NBA team by virtue of sheer talent and depth. But if they played by international rules, then I'm not so sure.

You're right that the international rules make a big difference for favoring certain style of game. And this group of players, with a few exceptions, aren't good for this style. Unless you believe that the NBA rules should be THE standard for basketball, I don't see how you can see one is superior than others.

(BTW, one poster said that we got cheated because the international game changed the rules away from the "actual"--meaning NBA--basketball. That is of course wrong historically. The NBA made as many, if not more, rule changes as the internationals.)

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that the NBA is not the best basketball in the world. It clearly is, simply because it has the best talents in the world. I'm just challenging the notion that the NBA brand of basketball is necessarily superior than others. Many "apologists" assume that since the NBA has the best talents, their way of playing the game must be the best, thereby brushing off any "alarmists" concerns.

 

I'm not really following this. What is "NBA brand of basketball." There's a wide variety of systems in the NBA, just like in college. Do you mean "Brand" as in the rules?

I love basektball very much. I always think that the team who wins the ring played the best, whether we call that a "brand" of basketball or not. It's a matter of respect to the game for me. Like in soccer, many people hate Italy's style...but if they win the World Cup, what can you say?

I don't look at things really as what systems I like the best. I love the Kings system, but I don't respect it any more or less than Minnesota's or LA or SA, Detroit or Indiana. I just look at Kings and think, "man, they better play perfect ball, or they are not winning with that defense." Dallas is a gimmick system, imo. Never thought they had any chance to win anything.

I have a lot of respect for defenses. Are you taking that into consideration when you say "brand," or are you mainly talking about offensive systems?

i'm in absolute agreement with francis 4 prez. GMs draft what wins, and coach's give PT to what wins. Selfish ball does not win. Teams of shooters with little defense don't win. It doesn't matter what your favorite type of player is, if Prince smothers Kobe, that's a winning approach despite Kobe being a more complete player and the Triangle being a more sexy system to the offense Detroit played. If Trenton Hassell blankets Peja not letting him get into a groove, then that's going to win the series despite Peja being the best pure shooter in the league and Hassell being a second-rounder who can't shoot that well.

Personally, I think what Detroit did was a thing of beauty, and not just because I hate the Lakers. I don't look at that and call it "Ugly Ball" like some do. I like the sport too much to call the NBA champs trash, or lucky, or a bad brand of basketball. (except for the 99 Spurs, )

Kim makes a good point, too, that it isn't an excuse to show how the 2003 team dominated the qualifiers.

<b>bottomline:</b> imo, the "brands" of basketball that win have to have great defense, under NBA rules. I guess you can say that it is the defensive "talent" that makes the NBA better, together with having the best superstars, too. But my point is that if defense didn't win, the NBA would be producing a different "brand" that did win, like in the 70s. We'd see the shooters playing more, just like francis 4 prez is saying.

 

HP, when I say "brand" I mean the style that is favored by the set of rules. Rules dictate to a large extent what skill sets are useful. For example, with illegal defense in place, players who can score at will one-on-one are very useful. So are players who can defend one-on-one. Teams like Sacramental could not have been successful in the 90s because of the rules. The NBA rules create certain brand of basketball culture which is not necessarily superior in a different set of rules.

I agree that the game also evolves within the same rules by discovering ways to win. The tough defensive model created by the Pistons was an evolution within the same rules.

The game of soccer has very few rules. They are pretty much universal. Basketball, on the other hand, has complicated rules. When you say you respect the game, you have to somewhat specify the game under what rules.

I disagree that GMs draft types of players that win. They draft talents. Yes, Prince locked down Kobe and his team won. Would any GM/coach pick Prince over Kobe? No. Detroit did their best with the talents they had. Would they exchange more talented players for their less talented guys? You bet.

Teams have to surround their stars with role players not because they don't want more stars, but because they can't afford it under the CBA. Red Auerbach won that many titles because he had teams full of stars. If you have talents, you can win with any style.

bottomline: Will the "brand" of basketball that the NBA rules produce become less competitive internationally when the talent level of other countries catches up with the US? That's the alarmist's question. Is the NBA willing to change the rules more toward the international in order to turn American basketball around?

 

And the "I Love This Game" answer is, who really cares? The "I Love the Game" answer is that we believe that the NBA has the better rules and the better "brands" of basketball--Kings, Minn, Memphis, NJ, Ind, LA, SA, Detroit...a great amount of variety that produces. There is no need to turn American bball around, because what you're really saying to me is you are alarmed that we can't win the Olympics. The NBA heads like me say, I don't really care. If we lose, we lose...but it's just another Gold Medal lost to me. I think American bball is perfectly fine as is, and the evolutions of the sport (rule based or not) are part of the game, just like how the NFL evolves all the time.

The game will recruit and play the players to fit what wins. Let's not get into a semantic argument about specific microscoped examples. I'm talking about evolutionary change...the difference between the 70s and now. I see an evolutionary change to have more Shandon Andersons in the NBA than Steve Kerr's. I do not see a big evolutionary change with the about of pure PGs in the NCAAs or other players who "play the right way." Nor do I see the players who play the wrong way winning anything in the NBA.

imo, alarmists are trying to say that they don't like the NBA anymore. Sure some "selfish" talents become the focal point of some NBA teams...but those guys never win, so I could care less. Bob McAdoo was the best pure shooting big man in the game....great rebounder...but he could not make his teammates better and so never did anything. There are examples of this in every era. Who cares? Unless you "play the right way" you do not win. Because of that fact, there is nothing wrong with NBA basketball. There is nothing to apologize for. We are just in an evolutionary cycle of the perfection of defense via team practive, effort and talent, and the zone rules have made defense even more valuable than before.

The notion that zones would bring back shooting and movement was just a very, very strange idea to me. Zones are going to make the focus even more on the prefection of defense as the ultimate winning tactic....whether you call that ugly ball or not. You can pull the threads I had with Achebe. I predicted a two or even three PF team would just stifle everyone. Detroit is a two PF team and they have a SF with a 7 foot wingspan.

Fundamentals are being taught in the USA. But what worked in the NBA in the 70s does not work now.

 

no edit:

by this "I think American bball is perfectly fine as is," I was talking about the Illinois HS Basketball, the NCAAs and the NBA. I was not talking about Team USA. They sucked bad. That was not team offense nor team defense.

 

I think you will care when basketball becomes truely a global sport like soccer. You don't care now because in your mind the NBA is still THE basketball league. You still call your NBA champion "World champion." Yes, it is still true. But the alarmists is saying that the Olympic loss and the World Championship loss are indicating a trend, the trend that basketball is getting global.

Some alarmists might. Not me. I still like the NBA. And I don't use "streetball" to characterize it. But I'm also not blind to the fact that other leagues are closing the gap. There will be a day when it is very meaningful in discussing which country's basketball is better.

When you say win, are you saying winning titles or are you saying winning games? I don't think winning titles as a standard to measure "playing right" is fair. Guys like Payton, Malone, Stockton, Barkley never won. Did they play the game right? Even winning games as a standard is flawed. Some guys labeled "losers" become "winners" simply by changing of scenary.

I don't dispute that coaches usually know "winners" from "losers." But teams still use talents, rather than "playing right" as their highest standard for player acquisition.

The game might evolve into 3 PFs lineup as the normal practice, because it works. But I doubt it. Before that happens, rules will change to prevent it. You seem to say that there is no ugly ball if it works. But the assumption is that the rules are fixed. But they are not. People want to make the game entertaining. If the game evolves into something really ugly, you can bet that the rules will change. The goaltending rule was instituted to prevent lots of ugly 0-0 games. The reinsitution of zone defense was to prevent the ugly clearout ISO. Sometimes it's not the rule itself but the interpretation of it gets changed. Some of the moves you see now might be called traveling in the past. But they call it differently now probably for entertainment purposes.

When basketball is global, international rules, not NBA rules, will be THE standard. Each country's basketball wiill be judged by its success under those rules, and interpretation. At that time, I am sure you will care very much whether the US wins in the World Championship (maybe not the Olympics) just like soccer fans in the world cares very much about the World Cup.

Fundamentals might be taught. But are the youngsters listening? I know you'll answer that only those who listen have a chance to play big time games. But the reality is that there are many, maybe too many, who didn't listen but still make it to the NBA because teams always seek after natural talents.

 

No I won't care. I told you I don't care. Why get alarmed that world bball gets better? It only makes the game better. The NBA is still going to be played here in the States, primarily. That's all I care about--seeing it in my timezone, in my State, in my city.

I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I think you are confusing this thread (or at least my participation in it) with a "How do we fix Team USA?" imo, that's not the point. The point is that we don't believe the game is getting worse here in the States. I certainly don't believe the NBA in the '70s is better than it is now. There's nothing to be alarmed about, other than we'll have a much harder time winning the Gold.

What are you alarmed about?

This is arguably true with first round picks. But I don't think this is true wrt to trades and acquiring role players. Coach's try to find chemistry. Not all coaches are trying to wonton-ly trade for the best athlete available, or use free agent money on just anyone. For instance, sometimes you have to pick defensive over offensive talent.

Like I say, I don't want to get sidetracked microscoping recent moves to see which one of us can come up with the most. I'm talking about evolutionary movement in the sport, because that is what the thread is about. The 70s was a much different game than now. The NBA was not fielding a lot of defense like today. Over the past 15 years, the league is drafting and playing more defensive players, and the stars are better and better at defense, too.

Isn't the NHL global? Aren't the NHL rules the standard? Doesn't NHL have a much smaller rink than the Olympics. What about MLB. That's fairly global. MLB rules and championship are the standard.

I don't find your comment to have any merit. Soccer as a global sport was established before big money entered the game. The World Cup has a long history. That's why it will always be special, because it always was special. No World Championship in bball is going to be as important to the players as the NBA title, because the NBA has the money and the history, so guys are going to play with the most intensity in the NBA, because that is where the money, fame and history...and the best basketball...is. Whether the NBA becomes filled with 50% Americans and 50% Europeans, I just don't see the Olympics ever being more important, nor the World Championships. Hell, Peja is not playing. Nor do I see another pro league attracting better players than the NBA.

But, let's just go ahead and buy into your doom and gloom scenario of the downfall of the NBA as the primary world championship. If the American players and coaches start viewing and dreaming of other championships as like a World Cup of bball, I have no alarmist instint to worry about America not fielding a great team that "plays the right way." If we get beat, we get beat. But we will play the right way, just like all the NBA contenders do.

Again, I don't agree with your "natural talents" thing. In drafts, teams do tend to value big men who are physically gifted, but that's a defense thing. They all want a defensive/rebounder. Even still, there are a lot of "stiffs" picked as well. Teams definitely consider their draft selections based on need for defense vs offense. They don't always pick best available offensive player with "natural talents." Certainly not in trades and free agency.

Call me blind to some "fact" that the NBA is deteriorating, because the league and the players don't value playing the right way and winning...like it's all about looking good and selling seats. I don't care how many pundits say it to get heard. They said the very same thing in the 1970s. They said that Magic and Bird "saved the NBA." But now we have people looking back to the 70s nostalgically.

<b>bottomline:</b> I'm not alarmed. I don't see bad basketball contending for the championship. Actually, I think Dallas is bad basketball...flawed at its core, so I guess I'm wrong there. I see very good defenses. Some people love Temple basketball; some people call it ugly. But one thing is for sure, Chaney is a great coach. He just doesn't recruit pure shooters who can't defend.

 

I guess I misunderstood you. You care only league competition. I care, on top of it, world competition. All I can say is, you and me are just different. I am sure there are fans that are like you and there are fans that are like me. BTW, even though it is true that they are the best leagues in the world, I still think it is disgustingly arrogant to call a league champion "world champion" and a league final series the "world series."

Better by what standard? Do we have more talented players than the 70s? I'd say yes. If we played an imaginary game between the All NBA team in the 70s (in their prime) and today's All NBA team, I'd bet my money on today's team. You always get more talents when the game gets more popular. The US has more talents than the world because the game is far more popular here.

Do we have more players that play the game right? It's hard to say. You know, I like the way you describe fundamentals: playing the game right. As you say, the game has evolved. Playing it right means different things in different eras. While it has something to do with people discovering new ways to win, it also has to do with rules and interpretation/enforcement of rules.

What if the league started to tighten up foul calls against defensive teams such as the Pistons and the Knicks in their haydays? Would they be as successful? Would the rest of the league still say, "Ah, they win with defense. Let's do the same thing"? What if the league starts calling the backing up move as charging? Would strength still be valued so much for interior players? What if the league starts tightening up the palming calls? Would some players lose their effectiveness?

The evolution is a controlled evolution. As I said in my previous post, it can evolve as far as the league allows. If the leauge decides too much defense is not "good" basketball anymore, they'll either change the rules or change the enforcement pattern. Then playing tough defense is no longer "playing right."

I am alarmed (actually I'm not VERY alarmed as some alarmists make it, as least not at this point) that the league is, probably for marketing reasons, channelling talents to play the sort of basketball that are not competitive in the international game. But since you don't care about the international game, there is nothing for you to be alarmed about.

I didn't mean global in the sense that the league is global. I meant that the game was popular in the whole world. Baseball is not a global sport, in that sense. Hockey is semi-global, imo. Basketball has a great potential to be a truly global sport.

Maybe that's because I grew up in a soccer culture. Europe is where the money is when it comes to soccer. Many South American superstars play in European leagues. There are clubs that could arguably be more talented than any national teams. But fans still see winning the World Cup the highest achievement over all league championships in the world. They still take pride in knowing their country has the best soccer.

Actually, I agree that Magic and Bird saved the NBA. I don't know why they look back to the 70s. My nostalgia is in the 80s. I agree with people who say that the 80s was the NBA's golden age. I think the Pistons and later Michael Jordan ruined the game. But that's just my irrational fandom boiling under.