Game ends at 12:30 ET. Game starts at 1:00 ET. Surrender jokes aside, this really should be no contest.
Curry is our best playmaker along with Billups. It's obvious at this point. Curry gives you the outside threat, the ballhandling, the vision, and he plays off the ball EXTREMELY well...
Man why do teams let the Spurs draft some of these players? Forgot they had the rights to De Colo too
Considering it was their first real game together, I thought Team USA looked OK. When the championships start in a couple of weeks, they should be about ready.
Keep Curry and Gordon and cut Westbrook....... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.clipsnation.com/2010/8/15/1624202/eric-gordon-is-going-to-europe With only three more cuts left to be made, it seemed pretty clear that two of them would be JaVale McGee and Jeff Green. After all, McGee had already been cut once and only rejoined the team after Brook Lopez dropped out. As for Green, he just didn't add enough to the team to justify keeping him around. Sure enough, in the team's scrimmage versus China yesterday, neither McGee nor Green got off the bench as Coach K tried to hone in on the actual lineups he'd be using in Turkey. Then Team USA made it official this morning, announcing that they had cut the roster down to 13 in advance of their real warm ups for the tournament, and leaving McGee and Green off the penultimate list. Which means that Gordon will either make the team, or be the final cut, but either way it appears that he'll get a chance to prove himself in game action against the likes of France, Spain, Lithuania and Greece in Friendlies before the tournament actually begins. Team USA officials have maintained for awhile that they might wait until the last minute to cut the roster down to 12, taking as long a look as they could at this team of new faces. The idea of taking extra bodies to Europe for the final preparations was always predicated on the 'bubble' players having an understanding of and accepting the situation. It's safe to say that McGee and Green would have been fine with being cut later, but that Coach K et al saw no point in prolonging the inevitable. In the case of Gordon, his laid-back demeanor and relative lack of ego makes it easy for Team USA to have him tag along and then put him in street clothes behind the bench in Istanbul. It's good and bad for the kid - he gets to stay with the team at least these extra couple of weeks, but he could easily be the final cut simply because the team leadership knows that it will be fairly painless for them to do so. We went through the final 15 and predicted the last three cuts earlier in the week. The two easy ones are done and have gone according to that earlier prediction. It's certainly harder now. With six guards standing 6'3" or shorter still on the team, it seems all but certain that the final cut will be one of them. After all, can they afford to have half of their roster in Turkey under 6'4"? The other possibility would be Rudy Gay, who is best as a primary scorer, but would have to be a role player on this team, something he would seem incapable of doing. More likely though Gay will be kept around as insurance against injuries and end up as the 12th man. If indeed it comes down to one of the guards, the conventional wisdom has for weeks been that it will be a choice between Gordon and Stephen Curry as the 'designated shooter' on the team. The 'logic' supporting this idea is so spurious that I can barely follow it. Why in fact would the team want to limit itself to two shooters? Not to mention that Gordon and Curry are far from one dimensional players. This is not Steve Novak we're talking about. Of the six guards still with the team, five of them played the majority of their minutes at point guard last season. It's not a bad thing to have extra ball handlers on the floor, and offensively that is certainly where the other five candidates have an advantage over Gordon - each of them has a much better handle than EJ. If Coach K wants to have two top level ball handlers on the court at all times, there may not be a place for Gordon. On the other hand, there's little question that EJ is a better defender than Curry or Derrick Rose, and in particularly when the team encoutners backcourts with size in the tournament (Russia and Greece with Spanoulis at 6'4" and Diamantidis at 6'6"), it might be nice to have Gordon around. I personally feel that the final cut should probably be Russell Westbrook. I think Westbrook is an amazing talent, but when I look at the six guards left on the team, I just don't see anything that Westbrook does that other players don't do better. In terms of strengths and weaknesses, he's almost exactly the same player as Rajon Rondo - except that Rondo is stronger at most things, and has valuable experience that may benefit the team in Turkey. Westbrook's tendency to play out of control at times and to put up terrible games with regularity also make him a candidate to be cut - in a single elimination tournament, consistent play trumps spectacular play. Finally, given that Rondo and Westbrook at among the worst perimeter shooters in the NBA, I really can't imagine having both of them on the floor at the same time. So for me it's clear that Westbrook is the one that needs to go. We'll see what happens. Both Curry and Gordon may suffer from playing for low profile NBA teams. Rondo the Celtic and Westbrook the Thunder (the new 'it' team) may both make Team USA if the NBA's marketing department influences the decision.
If Curry doesn't tighten his shooting up, they have to cut him. The physical play at the perimeter positions in FIBA puts him at a big disadvantage compared to Westbrook and Gordon. When Westbrook played in the game today, his man didn't even want the ball in his hands because he was tired of being harassed. Westbrook is also a better shooter than he's given credit for. Rondo is a pathetic shooter. Westbrook is just average. He is also a much better finisher than Curry could ever dream of being, which was made clear today. Curry is nifty and slick but he doesn't get high enough. Like Westbrook, Gordon gets up higher than Curry and is physically stronger. FIBA is a different world out there. Lastly, if Curry is cut, don't blame the "NBA's marketing department". I despise it when people like this writer (before any decision is made) preemptively lob grenades. When a decision comes down they don't agree with, it can't be because of merit; there must be some integrity flaw. We've got too many of these loony conspiracy-freaks on this forum. Neither Curry nor Westbrook will have any influence on where Team USA finishes because neither guy will get any playing time except in spot situations.
Good second half for Team USA after a really sloppy first half. The team still looks like they are struggling to find an identity. Fran Frischilla mentioned that Coach K was putting an emphasis on running an effective half court offense, so obviously they are putting some focus on that. On the other hand, the second half surge was largely brought on by guys like Rudy Gay and Kevin Durant blowing past defenders and taking the ball to the basket in an up-tempo offense.
