Brad is a interesting prospect. a diamond in the rough. you can certianly the time he's had in the europian league has ironed out alot of those creases he had in he's game over the years. he's game has certianly benifited from playing in a world class league like in greece. however sadly i just dont see him ever cracking it into the nba.
The US national team has got to focus on a better team defensive effort if they want to win everything. They just looked like they didn't even care on that end of the floor. And even on the offensive end, the same problems that plagued some of the best players' teams are plaguing the US national team. Remember how Carmelo was a ball stopper on the Nuggets? Well, yep, he's jacking the same r****ded threes in transition on the national team. Remember how Lebron hasn't learned to share yet? Yep, same issues on the national team. Even Chris Paul, one of my favorite players, just doesn't seem the same without a team of players who know where they should go so that he can deliver them the ball where they like it.
Mills will be a very good prospect for Australia in the future. BG has done a very good time getting this Australian team to come together and with Bogut on the inside they will cause some trouble come the Olympics. Newley has improved his game since I last saw him live in the NBL.
Were loaded at the wing. so that essentialy rules us out.also guys like brad are everywhere in the draft. it's not like Atheletic Wings are a extinct breed these days. why would'nt pickup a player like that in the draft whos younger and has alot more upside then brad?
Mills is a very, very good player. he's lightning quick. he reminds of brooks. certianly has the potential to be a very solid backup in the nba.
You guys are making too much of todays' game. Team USA didn't play with any fire and went through the motions most of the time. I doubt Newley makes the NBA. He has a long way to go. Maybe down the line sometime I guess.
Is Mills a Point Guard? How tall is he? Could the Rockets use him and could they get him for this season?
they need to play michael redd more, the offense is stinking it up and he's their best shooter. and my god, melo is easily the worst defender of any star i have ever known (a little exaggeration maybe but well deserved). and i don't see how adding kobe helps this team really. they have the same problems as they see the better teams. we just need to get the top 15 guys in the NBA together if we don't get gold or just retire from international ball period. this is embarrassing if we dont' win gold.
while the team obviously didn't care today (every time it got too close, they would play hard for about 2 minutes to get the lead back up), if we lose i think a big part of the blame should go to coach K's defensive strategy. it seems mindboggling to me. instead of using our amazing athleticism and speed to craft a fundamentally sound, keep your man in front of you, force tough jumpers defense, he's just doing exactly what he does at duke, trying to own the perimeter. and it's working exactly like it does at duke. with duke's athletes and the skill-level of most of college bball, the pressure frustrates the hell out of teams and you trade a few open looks and layups for a lot of turnovers and frustration for the offense. but then they face an inferior team that has quick, ball-handling guards and it goes to crap. then they start trading a few turnovers and a little frustration for a ton of layups and open jumpers. and that's exactly what happens to team USA. the canada's of the world can't stay within 50 because we get so many steals, but against real teams, they use our aggressiveness against us to get easy basket after easy basket. with the court spread so well by international shooters, you can't have your pg pressuring someone like mills 40 feet from the basket. it's no problem to get by the guy one on one and then the whole defense is broken down and you didn't even make them work for it. and then our random halfcourt traps that throw the whole defense out of whack are even stupider. then because we're out of sorts at that point, even when we start rotating well no one really seems to know where to rotate and we're F'd again. and then don't even get me started on the fouls. we're encouraged to go for the steals ALL THE ****ING TIME. some guy will be trapped by 2 guys after picking up his dribble and instead of just forcing him into a tough pass or something, we just reach in and rake him across the arm and give up the advantage. assuming the opponent doesn't completely suck, stealing is pretty hard. so basically we just end up committing about 3 reaching fouls in the first 2 minutes of every quarter and are in the penalty practically the whole damn time. imagine what a jvg or a thibodeaux could do with this defensive talent. so frustrating. and while the offense can worry me at times, if they would just stop forcing the ridiculous passes that result in so many turnovers they would be fine. stop trying to make everything a layup. you're kobe, or carmelo, or paul, or williams, you know how to make 15 foot jumpers, just take those.*** instead we overpenetrate, force passes and commit turnovers these guys would never commit in the nba instead of getting a shot up. any shot is better than a turnover, and with the individual talent on this team, even a bad shot can go in. also, i like listening to fran fraschilla, but he is seeminly never satisfied with any offensive possession. if someone drives, he complains there's too much one one one as if a) no other team in the world uses one on one (i saw the aussies do it plenty) and b) a team with the best one on one talent in the world shouldn't isolate a decent amount. why would we try to run the same offense as everyone else with different talent? even if the one on one move gets a great shot and it just doesn't go in, he'll complain. and then if we do swing the ball around and take an open shot, it's somehow a rushed shot or too quick in the shotclock, like we need to pass up the open shot and start all over just to run clock. sometimes i don't know what he even wants. *** watching us pass up easy shots and other teams forcing tough jumpers right in our face and making them shows you just how much more comfortable in their skin everyone else in the world is in these international competitions. and that makes such a huge difference. you've got someone like anstey throwing up 3's in dwight howard's face when he not even set and swishing them, then later throwing up the ugliest 10 foot finger roll ever and making it. mills is taking and making tougher shots than guys like kobe and lebron and someone like newley plays a good game while chris paul looks lost. they obviously aren't better players than their team USA counterparts (otherwise they'd be signing $15M/yr NBA contracts), but they're so at home in these games and know where they fit on the team, while everyone on team USA is so uncomfortable. that's probably 8-10 points a game just right there. considering how well carmelo has played in international ball, i don't think he really has a problem fitting in (though he's not playing as well right now). what? he's practically the best passer in the nba and amazingly willing to pass it given his teammates on the cavs. what are you talking about? he really has sucked (relatively speaking). he doesn't know how to get out and run, and without all his hornet teammates around him, he doesn't really know what to do in the offense. deron williams has definitely outplayed him so far. and if kobe takes one more mother****ing 3 from 6 feet behind the line i'm gonna scream. at least take a ****ing NBA 3. considering you're not making them from there, maybe you should take a step inside the parking lot and try using the 20 foot line to your advantage. this team isn't winning gold. at least one game is going to go very poorly and we're going to pull our "we look like we're trying to throw this game we're playing so sloppily" routine against a good team and lose. might lose twice.
i really don't understand why he doesn't play more. given coach K's ridiculous defensive strategy that has us off-balance at all times anyway, putting redd out there isn't going to hurt the D much, and his 3 point shooting, or just the threat of it, seems to make the offense so much more smooth.
Coach K sucks. He was a great college coach but he sucks right now and I suspect would have been seriously exposed had he taken an NBA job.
f4p, I agree with most of what you say, especially the overplaying defense. It makes every possession a "double or nothing" gamble and teams with good guard play will eat it up. I think the bad passes today were due to a lack of respect for the Aussie's and a lack of focus. Team USA wanted everything to be easy and they weren't totally focused on the task at hand. Boredom with playing another meaningless game was a big factor. To win the gold, Team USA needs to do at least the following: 1 Push the ball every single possession and look for transition baskets. Their skill on the break needs to be exploited at every opportunity. 2 When in halfcourt, try to make 2-3 quick passes and move without the ball. Too many times the shot clock will run down because someone holds the ball or the first few passes are purposeless and don't get the offense in motion. 3 Don't isolate unless there is a clear matchup disparity. Iso's are OK if the defense gives us a good matchup. 4 Avoid contested outside shots. This is lazy offense and bails out the opposing team. Team USA must make up it's mind to attack zone defenses at all cost to create inside baskets or to at least create uncontested jumpers when the defense sells out to packing the inside. 5 On defense, quit gambling so much. Double-teaming and trapping someone 35 feet from the basket is fine, but without a double-team, not even Chris Paul and Deron Williams can keep their defender in front of them without backing off some. 6 Stop the silly fouling of opponents when they aren't close to taking a shot. 7 Wade, Kobe & LeBron will need to play big minutes in the medal round. Rest 'em up when you can but those 3 are the key to our team. It would also help if Melo snapped back to his normal international form. 8 In the medal round, end the pretense of giving minutes to Kidd, Boozer and Prince. Those 3 are a step behind the rest of the team. (IMO, Kevin Durant should be on the team instead of Prince). Too bad Amare isn't there instead of Boozer. I think Team USA will beat Spain in the gold medal game.
LeBron, Kobe & Wade are all untouchable. I agree with A3P0. I used to think Melo was arguably our best International player but he's been pretty streaky so far. A good sign is he's still rebounding well and owning the glass down low, though. Our PG play has been average-at-best. Lots of TO's, lots of streaky shooting and lots of flat out just looking ordinary. Not a good thing for guys like Paul and Deron who are supposed to be NBA elites. Adding Kidd to the roster looks like a worse decision with each game that passes. Redd is completely useless when his shot isn't falling. I expected Dwight Howard to stand out more. Bosh is soft. They should have chosen Al Jefferson instead. Prince can't get off the bench. Totally wasted pick that could have went to Joe Johnson or somebody like that instead.
I don't care what excuses you give these guys... not playing together enough, no international experience, not taking opponent seriously, blah blah blah. The fact is, the original Dream Team would steam roll over anybody insight, in any game, any day of the week, no questions asked.
while i agree they didn't give a crap, they've forced passes the last few games expecting everything to be like against canada, where just about anything worked. for some reason, if we don't score in transition, it's almost like the coaching philosophy has these guys thinking they have to get a shot off in "7 seconds or less" like the suns or something. hey, if it takes 15 or 18 seconds to get a nice matchup, then so be it. work it around until kobe or lebron has someone on the ropes or we have an open jumper or howard posted up. we seem to be in a rush, instead of just running a normal nba-like offense, which can still have isolations. definitely. every time we swing the ball against the zone, we almost inevitably catch one rotator off-balance at which point we can penetrate inside (or we just find someone like redd wide open in the corner). i don't know why we don't do it more. quick perimeter passes have worked very well for us against zones. exactly, just make them take tough shots. anybody with any dribbling ability can go around anyone else when they're right up on them. and it just breaks down the defense immediately. it won't, but the reaching has to stop. it's one thing when someone throws a lazy pass or a guy catches it with his head turned from you and the basketball just hanging out there. that's a good time to reach b/c there's a good chance you'll pick it clean. but when a guy has it tucked away football style, the odds of getting it clean are so low and the odds of fouling are so high. they either lose that game or to argentina a round before i think. like i said, we're just not comfortable in our skin in these games and i don't think almost anything will ever change that. we have the best players, they all know how to play basketball and have so much more skill than the rest of the world, but outside of transition (where we have not only incomparable athleticism but also skill) we just always seem like we're overthinking it, like we know what we should do but just can't get ourselves to do it. if these guys were all as comfortable as they are on an nba court, even with the different rules, i don't think anyone else would have much of a chance.
the original dream team was like 12 years worth of all the greatest players in the league coming together in their primes (except bird and maybe magic) and then playing horrible teams. they're better than this team, but it would be almost like if we could put duncan and garnett on this team and roll shaq's body clock back about 5 years and add him to the team as well. and then get them to play canada and angola over and over again.
There you go. JJ is multiskilled and a very good passer/playmaker. He would have fit this team like a glove and earned playing time. Not only is Prince underskilled to be on the team, he's lost confidence which makes his value equal to zero. Bosh is winning me over slowly. I don't think Jefferson is ready yet. You said it on Redd. He needs to be on the team because you never know when he might hit 4/5 3-pointers in 10 minutes in a medal game. f4p, We will beat Argentina. So will Spain and (maybe) Greece. They aren't as good this time around. Don't know if you've seen any of their warmup games. We have some people from Argentina on the forum, care to comment? Your comments on "comfort" are dead on. The NBA game is different because of the rules and the refereeing tendencies. The lack of a comfort zone for USA makes it competitive.
