I think so. The US is always the top team, just a matter of whether or not they play like it. So far, there is nothing to suggest otherwise.
I couldn't disagree more. you can say the US has the most talent, is the most expensive, has the biggest reputation. you can't say they ALWAYS have the BEST TEAM. they might be trying harder at being the best team but as it stands right now the US are bronze medallists. 3rd best. And this may change over the course of the WC's, infact I predict they win Gold this time around. But just can not say they're the best team always.
IMHO the USA is always one of the top favorites. They also have the best talent. However if they are the best TEAM? they have to prove that. I'm looking forward to see how they will play this WC.
well, the USA is better than the world, so yeah, it's the top team. We will always be the top team. We shouldn't lose at basketball to anybody.
While we are top, we might not win for sure because we are still not significantly better than other teams. Just one great game from another top team and a bad game from us and we can be on the way home.
it is precisely this arrogance that has led to the US getting crushed the past few times they have played. when will it sink in that there are great TEAMS outside of the US?????
Over the past 4 years the US is playing .500 ball, so no we are not the absolute best team anymore, we are amongst the best. Even talent wise we are not the best anymore, at least not in the talent necessary to win these types of tournaments.
Team USA should play as a team and not as individual talented player. It doesn't matter whether US has the most talented players in the team. If the players can't play as a team (chemistry), they will find themselves not winning gold again. But at this moment, it is too early to tell. A few more exhibition games will do the Team USA a whole lot of good.
As long as they're the standard the rest of the world measures themselves against, USAB is the top team.
According to FIBA we are #1 in the world: Rank Points 1. USA 832.2 2. YUG* 708.0 3. ARG 700.0 4. LTU 460.0 5. ESP 439.0 6. ITA 433.0 7. RUS 362.0 8. GRE 304.0 9. AUS 279.0 10. FRA 273.0 11. PUR 247.6 12. CAN 231.0 13. GER 227.0 14. CHN 209.0 15. BRA 203.0 16. NZL 178.0 17. ANG 156.0 18. TUR 129.0 19. CRO 125.0 20. VEN 99.6 21. NGR 80.8 22. SLO 71.0 23. KOR 66.5 24. ISR 62.0 25. JPN 54.2 26. LIB 50.1 27. DOM 43.8 28. QAT 40.2 29. ALG 36.0 30. SEN 35.8 31. URU 34.4 32. EGY 34.0 33. LAT 33.0 34. PAN 29.6 35. MEX 25.6 36. BIH 20.0 37. IRI 18.1 38. ISV 16.8 39. UKR 14.0 40. TPE 13.5 41. KSA 12.3 42. SYR 10.8 43. TUN 10.6 44. KUW 9.9 44. UZB 9.9 46. MAR 9.0 47. IND 8.7 48. CIV 7.8 49. CAF 7.6 50. CUB 7.2 50. HKG 7.2 52. CZE 7.0 52. MAS 7.0 52. MLI 7.0 52. MOZ 7.0 56. KAZ 6.3 56. JOR 6.3 58. RSA 6.2 59. MKD 6.0 59. BUL 6.0 61. UAE 5.4 62. EST 5.0 62. HUN 5.0 64. GUM 4.0 65. PHI 3.6 66. THA 3.3 67. SWE 3.0 67. POR 3.0 67. CAL 3.0 70. BRN 2.1 71. CPV 2.0 71. GAB 2.0 73. INA 1.5 73. SIN 1.5 75. MAD 1.4 http://www.fiba.com/pages/en/misc/ranking/FIBArankingG.asp?an_id=557&pn_id=178&
I think we are the best team in the world right now. That certainly wasn't the case in the last Olympics, but I think we learned our lesson and this team is different. This team plays defense, unlike a lot of the past USA teams. Defense leads to easy transition buckets. With our athletic ability, I don't know how anyone can compete with us if we're playing that solid in-your-face defense we saw in the first 2 games. This team also seems hungry and more business-like. Something missing from all past USA teams. They seem to be on a mission to correct what happened in the last Olympics. I wouldn't dig too deep into that Brazil game. We were playing a back-to-back and I believe it was Brazil's 1st game. And we did win. I predict this team wins the gold in the championships and in the Olympics too.
The most critical problem US is facing is that they don't have real inside presence and true pure shooters on the team. Therefore, when teams uses zone defense to shut down DWade or James to drive inside. Or when they don't make silly mistakes and give US fast break opportunities, the offense just become become stagnant. On the defensive end, they solely use man-to-man pressing defense, trying to use their athleticism to shut down the opponent. Which may spell trouble when the other team is equally athletic. They rarely mix it up different defensive schemes, maybe because of lacking of team chemistry (due to short time together as a team, less than one month), or maybe it is just a warm up game to get familiar with certain part of the game?
Stop your whining, Malaysia is far and away the regional superpower when it comes to Southeast Asia hoops (locked in a titanic struggle with the Czechs, the Mozambicans, and Malawi for 52nd place). . Let's face it boys, the mean streets of KL are no place to not bring your A game. SEA hoops means Malaysia, and then there's everbody else.
Keep in mind these games are meaningless exhibition games and they probably don't want to show their whole defensive arsenal for other teams to prepare for just yet.
