Why Team USA Basketball Is In Trouble
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Published 2024-07-28
In 1992, the Men’s USA Basketball team won their pre-olympic exhibitions by an average of 52.8 points. In 2008, they won by an average of 32.2 points. This year, they won by an average of 10.2 with all but two finishing with a less than 10 point margin.
Team USA assembled one of the most impressive rosters in years and… we’re down by 13 at half against Sudan… We assembled the Avengers and we getting still getting teed up? But this isn’t anything new. Even with a win against Serbia, Team USA is still in trouble and will continue to be for the next few years. Noah Lyles might’ve spurred something when he said
This year, the roster is godly, filled with players who have varying levels international experience. What I said about players resting and avoiding playing in the Olympics is no longer true this year, what I said about the team not having experience is also no longer true, but my other points still stand and it’s what everyone forgot about, so I’m gonna go through the 2 key reasons why Team USA will still continue to get worse unless they address it. And it starts with leadership, and no I’m not talking about LeBron. No I’m talking about the Team USA program, but to understand, we have to first understand why Team USA lost in 2004 before the world had caught up and what USA did to fix that.
And that’s exactly what happened the past few years, but this time it was load managing. Players choosing to rest, not wanting to play voluntary extra games. The fire had been lost but just like the 2004 loss woke up players and led to one of the greatest olympic teams in history, the 2008 redeem team, filled with the best the NBA had to offer. Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, this was no joke and it was filled with a mix of players who had some international experience and some with none. But that team did something differently, something that set them up for years of success.
Team USA brought in Coach K to shake things up in the program and yeah he would, but the players were also committed to spending time playing with each other. See, Jerry CoIangelo, the Suns owner at the time, became the director of USA basketball in 2005, and chose Coach K to be the national coach and not just the Olympic coach. For the 2006 FIBA Tournament, the Team USA program tried to pick players who would also be available for the 2008 olympics and build a core. It was this idea to have players build and grow with each other over multiple competitions and not just one month before the Olympics. They told stars that they were committing to 3 summers. In 2006, all the players for the olympic trials stayed together in Vegas for a month. In 2007, the roster was finalized with Kobe on it and went through another intense training camp. And to top it off, in 2007, they had one of the greatest games the public has ever seen, with LeBron, Kobe going at it, a freshly drafted KD making his mark, capping off with Kobe hitting a game winner.
Of course when the stars finally decided to play for the olympic team, it was a no brainer right. You would be crazy to say no to LeBron, Curry, Durant, especially after the roster from last year.
Steph Curry said it himself that we haven’t seen Team USA’s best offense through these exhibition games. Even if USA is able to beat some of the lower teams, what we haven’t seen is a fluid offense. We’ve seen players late to hustle back, late to rotate. For all of LeBron’s heroics against Sudan, man had his hands down down 2. Team USA’s rotations have also been inconsistent, sometimes there’s weakside help, sometimes there’s not and no it’s not by design.
Team USA no longer has the best players in the world on paper. Giannis, Jokic, Luka 3 of the top 6 players in the world are not from the US and this trickles throughout the league.
But even with the increase in NBA players on other teams, even those teams try to stay consistent with their cores. Take a look at Canada’s Fiba team from last year and their olympic team this year, 8 of their players returned.
If we take a look at France in the same way, 7 players came back.
With Team USA, it’s 2. 2 players that aren’t even part of the new core.
And that leads to an easy solution, keep your core the same. I know it’s enticing to just pick the best players available and it’s a good problem to have when you can replace one all-star with another. That’s how deep the roster selection can go for the US, but try to have certain cores together for a minimum of two years. Stress to players that this is a 2 year minimum commitment and try to have half the roster return. Technically, even if you don’t have the current best players by the second year and you just have B tier superstars, if they have chemistry with each other, then that is better than A tier superstars with no chemistry. It’s as simple as that.
All Comments (21)
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This Team USA team is amazing! The world has also caught up and I still think we're going to win, but there's something that's painfully missing this year that USA had even before the world caught up and it's the future I'm the most worried about. Hopefully that clears up the overall feeling of the video
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Why only talk about the practice games, and not the actual game with Serbia last night?
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Understand that the world has caught up to nba talented players. How many players from different countries play in the nba compared 1992? Not only that the fiba teams have played together longer than any nba player thrown on the Olympic roster? So give time for their chemistry to come together and you will see some magic. For example KD putting up 19 pts in a quarter.
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This team would have also won against international milk cartons by 50 if they time traveled back to 92 lmao
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Has that dude not seen the last five Olympics?
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The clout of comparing the dream team with the next generation of US teams is overrated. Generations and eras are different.
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Yea they had it made back in the day the rest of the world is 100% better than the teams that dream team played this is a joke😂
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Dude is right. This Olympics is not going to be easy for the US team
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Team USA are still the favorites and they gonna get it. But it 's their last time being that. Please don't compare Dream Team with today's team. Different era, different game and it's been 32 YEARS, this thing has to stop. What you said about core players is THE TRUTH. In the future the top players need to have a "patriotic mindset and responsibility" that is brought up and not hindered by their teams in the NBA. It's NBA's responsibility to do something about it. I got only but respect for Ant and Hal cause they were there when their country needed them. All the other ones, no matter how great players they are, they' re in it for their gold.
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From now on, USA needs to send the best of the NBA or else they'll be a mid tier team in international tournaments.
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Chemistry is everything on a team. Not sure why Team USA has to relearn that concept every decade or so.
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Why would u start talking about the exhibition games when Kevin Durant didn’t play in any of them bro? KD alone makes this team unbeatable because he turns up in Olympics.
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Mj2makecontent was good to capitalize on this exhausting story about the world catching up but losing to a sport we appreciate more than the others was boring 24 years ago. Keep it up.
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LBJ, KD and Steph are gonna retire soon, the best players in the NBA are Europeans. Team USA can't rely too much on talent alone, in the near future. But it'll take a few more years for other countries to dethrone USA or at least be competitive. As for now team USA still too good for the rest of the world.
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They looked AMAZING today in the first actual game that matters. You cap cap cappin.
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Aye bruh it’s wayy more talent now then it was back then it’s over 60 nba players playing
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teamwork and chemistry makes the difference when the collective skill gap isn’t as vast as it was in the past
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this vid deserves a dislike😄 was pre-made and released at the wrong time
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bro the amount of hate Team USA is getting is annoying already. lmao! biggest factor = the world got better. PERIOD. stop hating be happy for the sport. jesus
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Just beat the toughest team in group C by 26 in our Olympic debut. Shouldve taken the L and canned this video.
