Its amazing how much smaller Okafor looks next to NBA players. This guy looked huge in college... now I'm confusing him for Wade... man.
USA needs to play better otherwise they will be destroyed by Serbs, Lithuania and Spain that are all better than Italy.
not so sure about that one... but yeah... i'm kinda sad too. here's my theory. a lot of the USA's previous success had to do with the mystique. you know? the god-like mystique. 1992 dream team, other teams were more interested in getting autographs and too scared to compete. slowly, the mystique wore down as teams got closer and closer. now, not only is the aura of intimidation gone... it's like teams are extra motivated to bring their A-games against the US. because of course it's very prestigious to beat the US. it's like: you think you're pretty cool bullying us all those previous years huh? for the revolution we'll bring you down! yeah... i wonder if the U.S. can ever regain that kind of dominance. i guess not since the globalization of basketball is an unstoppable trend. hell... if China loves basketball this much, in 20-30 years they might become dominant... just by the law of large numbers alone.
Probably not. Teams will use zone defense more and better in the future. So players need good jump shot to dominate. Fortunately, both of our Franchise players have it
Pretty pathetic but its better to lose now then later. I bet this game will shut carmelo the hell up. This team has some serious flaws and I dont know how the selection committe built a purely on athleticism and youth. Sending this borderline all star rookies instead of established vets
Team USA's past success was due to our basketball philosophy, and our current woes are the result of the same thing. The world has changed, but we haven't.
QUESTION: What is the reasoning behind having the trapezoidal lane in international competition... is it just to neutralize the big men, so that they can't just camp-out right under the basket?? I think this facet alone hinders the US team greatly, especially since some of their big guys (Okafor, Stoudamire) have absolutely no shooting range at all.
Nope. No joke. If you're watching this game, it's more than obvious. Any NBA catch-and-shoot specialist would fit this team better than every perimeter player except Carmelo and Wade, regardless of athleticism. These All-Stars, even if they are decent shooters, are VOLUME shooters. Give them 1 shot/5 minutes, they turn into GP in the playoffs. Brick city. A role player with a consistent 3 pt shot is just... better. That's basically what the Italian high-scorers have. I'll go on, A retired Steve Kerr > Marbury Rasheed Wallace > Stoudamire/Okafor Teammate Kyle Korver > Iverson There's no defensive 3 seconds. It's basically a game of horse.
DAMN is all I can say. It's like when Serena lost at Wimbeldon, when she usually loses, it's because of her own mistakes, but at Wimbeldon, that girl just kicked her @$$, it wasn't how bad Serena played, it was how good the Russian chick was (forget her name) Same with L.A. and Pistons Same with USA and Italy, they just kicked our ass.
watching a team of guys who can't hit an outside jump shot to save their lives is soooo fitting for the state of the game here right about now.
HAHA... and ESPN is following this horrible showing by the perfect analagous, ironic programming... AND ONE STREETBALL! Europeans who probably see this programming are very optimistic about the demise of future USA basketball players...
The reason the rest of the world can compete with us is because there are no more dominant big men. The first Dream Team had Ewing, Robinson, Karl Malone, and Charles Barkley. The second had Shaq, and the third had Olajuwon. Now we are relying on Duncan who isn't enough.
Can somebody tell me why Micheal Redd wasnt extended an invitation. Carmelo over Redd??? comon. Does he have too much experience or something or is he too much of a good shooter to join this team. Stu Jackson and the rest of the committee should be fired for making such a bonehead team. Their imcompetence will cost the US gold or maybe even a medal. You cant win on talent and the world championships should have proved that.
