Europe: Diagnosing Team USA?

[Killakobe81]

The thing about an Olympic Gold is that it matters to anyone but US basketball players because of the dominance that US had enjoyed through the years. Winning a gold is akin to a 73 win team winning a le, it is what you SHOULD do. You don't gain any extra brownie points for doing something you should do, but you certainly get points taken off for not winning it.

I agree the bronze is a stain on Duncan's legacy, because they were supposed to win at the outset of the program. But then when you actually look at the construction of the team and the total lack of practice time, and you know why they didn't win.

FIBA focuses much more on perimeter play and passing, and the typical 90s/00s type of ball the NBA plays is exactly opposite to that type of play. Think of the greatest FIBA players of all time, they all have superior perimeter/passing skills. Oscar Schmidt, Drazen, Sarunas, Manu, Sergei, Kukoc. Even their bigs, like Divac, Sabonis, Cosic have extremely advanced perimeter and passing skills. Divacs was basically the best passing big the NBA ever saw along with Walton, Sabonis was nailing threes and throwing these insane passes in traffic even after he was injured and lost both of his knees.

To expect Duncan carry such a flawed team with limited perimeter shooting, and horrible passing to a gold is just ignorance. It's a different game that is played, and these casual observers still couldn't get it 12 years down the line. Sure, Team USA should have been able to tell these issues since they are basketball experts and should have foreseen these things, but hindsight is 20/20 and they didn't have the benefit of hindsight back then. It also shows the level of arrogance of Team USA in general, which led to the lack of effort and care put in to construct the team.

The 2000 team was already experiencing some close calls, and instead of looking into team construction and making something out of it, Team USA decided to ignore the problem and let it turn into a disaster.

To put the blame of the bronze on Duncan says more about the lack of your basketball knowledge than it does about Duncan's legacy.

I dont blame it all on Duncan ...its a team sport. In fact he didnt play terrible iirc, he just failed to dominate as expected.But the star gets the lion share of credit for wins and also for losses. Stars like Duncan, LeBron etc. Understand this even if its unfair.
For the record it doesnt stain Duncan's legacy for me.
But to ignore it or pretend it didnt happen is dishonest.
Every player even the great ones has a failure on their resume even Jordan. After worthy left unc and he was the alpha unc could not win another ncaa ...they failed to even reach the final 4 iirc. Is that more important than the ring he won as a frosh or the 6 rings in the pros? No. But it is a part of his total history just like the bronze for Tim is ...

[ambchang]

I dont blame it all on Duncan ...its a team sport. In fact he didnt play terrible iirc, he just failed to dominate as expected.But the star gets the lion share of credit for wins and also for losses. Stars like Duncan, LeBron etc. Understand this even if its unfair.
For the record it doesnt stain Duncan's legacy for me.
But to ignore it or pretend it didnt happen is dishonest.
Every player even the great ones has a failure on their resume even Jordan. After worthy left unc and he was the alpha unc could not win another ncaa ...they failed to even reach the final 4 iirc. Is that more important than the ring he won as a frosh or the 6 rings in the pros? No. But it is a part of his total history just like the bronze for Tim is ...

I think it's a stain in the sense that he won the bronze and not the gold as expected. It's a widely held view, as flawed as it is.

That said, I don't agree with the Jordan thing. Otherwise, any year a player doesn't win a championship or failed to win an MVP would be a failure.

Failure has to be measured against expectations. Me making $200K a year would be a successful year, a fund manager making $200K a year would be a failure. Splits making $200K a year would be an average year.

[Killakobe81]

I think it's a stain in the sense that he won the bronze and not the gold as expected. It's a widely held view, as flawed as it is.

That said, I don't agree with the Jordan thing. Otherwise, any year a player doesn't win a championship or failed to win an MVP would be a failure.

Failure has to be measured against expectations. Me making $200K a year would be a successful year, a fund manager making $200K a year would be a failure. Splits making $200K a year would be an average year.

I get what you mean by expectations ...
But doesnt change the fact Jordan was a two time cpoty on a stacked team with perkins still and later kenny smith and more and he failed to get back to a le game. For example len bias led a less heralded maryland squad to key wins over unc.
Look mj hit the game winner as a freshman so he had a skin on the wall he was one of the best college players ever despite the realitively low scoring numbers for him ...doesnt change the fact when he was the leader unc underachieved. Duncan for example carried little brother wake to new heights as did David with Navy them not ringing was expected...

[mavsfan1000]

I dont blame it all on Duncan ...its a team sport. In fact he didnt play terrible iirc, he just failed to dominate as expected.But the star gets the lion share of credit for wins and also for losses. Stars like Duncan, LeBron etc. Understand this even if its unfair.
For the record it doesnt stain Duncan's legacy for me.
But to ignore it or pretend it didnt happen is dishonest.
Every player even the great ones has a failure on their resume even Jordan. After worthy left unc and he was the alpha unc could not win another ncaa ...they failed to even reach the final 4 iirc. Is that more important than the ring he won as a frosh or the 6 rings in the pros? No. But it is a part of his total history just like the bronze for Tim is ...

He didn't dominate because the refs didn't give him the star treatment. What he gets away with in the nba wouldn't be allowed in Fiba.

[ambchang]

I get what you mean by expectations ...
But doesnt change the fact Jordan was a two time cpoty on a stacked team with perkins still and later kenny smith and more and he failed to get back to a le game. For example len bias led a less heralded maryland squad to key wins over unc.
Look mj hit the game winner as a freshman so he had a skin on the wall he was one of the best college players ever despite the realitively low scoring numbers for him ...doesnt change the fact when he was the leader unc underachieved. Duncan for example carried little brother wake to new heights as did David with Navy them not ringing was expected...

Jordan probably could have done more, but college is a very different game than NBA, where individual brilliance makes a stronger impact. College ball is mostly about team work and systems, you have the Shane Battiers and Danny Ferrys and Christian Laettner's playing like they are the second coming in college.

The only person to hold Jordan under 10 points a game since he was a freshman was Dean Smith.

[Killakobe81]

Btw the team in 83-84 after not only had pe.rkins and smith but brad daugherty as well. Smith did break his wrist that year but it was probably one of the better teams not to reach a final 4. They lost only 1 game in the regualr season and another in the acc tourney before losing in march madness ...

[Killakobe81]

Jordan probably could have done more, but college is a very different game than NBA, where individual brilliance makes a stronger impact. College ball is mostly about team work and systems, you have the Shane Battiers and Danny Ferrys and Christian Laettner's playing like they are the second coming in college.

The only person to hold Jordan under 10 points a game since he was a freshman was Dean Smith.

Part of that was the stacked team he had ...
Perk, Daugherty, kenny smith joe wolf and matt doherty

[Killakobe81]

Again for the credit he gets for ringing as a frosh he also takes the L for losses as a soph and junior ...
And again worthy was actually the best player on that le team ...though jordan was the greater college and pro player overall.

[ambchang]

Again for the creditvhe gets for rining as a frosh he also takes the l for losses as a soph and junior

You bring out a good point earlier, and that is the good will that was built up helps with the legacy earlier on. I guess you have only one chance at first impressions.

If Duncan didn't ring in 99, he would be grilled a lot more for 01 and 02, and Pop might have been fired before 03.

If it wasn't for the previous rings, losing to the Grizzlies would have torn the team apart and Duncan would have been labelled as a choker.

Look at Dirk, the disappointments of 06 and 07 forever stained his legacy. It really took a monumental performance in 11 to somehow redeem it a little (not all the way).

It took Lebron 3 les, including beating a 73-win team and coming back 1-3 to somehow redeem his 11 loss. If the timelines were reversed, say Lebron won first, got that 73-win team slaying le under his belt, then blew a fart in the finals like he did in 11, people will brush off the 11 as some anomaly and that what he did previously more than offset that one "failure", and he'd be an undisputed top 3 player of all time.

It's funny how these things work.

[Killakobe81]

You bring out a good point earlier, and that is the good will that was built up helps with the legacy earlier on. I guess you have only one chance at first impressions.

If Duncan didn't ring in 99, he would be grilled a lot more for 01 and 02, and Pop might have been fired before 03.

If it wasn't for the previous rings, losing to the Grizzlies would have torn the team apart and Duncan would have been labelled as a choker.

Look at Dirk, the disappointments of 06 and 07 forever stained his legacy. It really took a monumental performance in 11 to somehow redeem it a little (not all the way).

It took Lebron 3 les, including beating a 73-win team and coming back 1-3 to somehow redeem his 11 loss. If the timelines were reversed, say Lebron won first, got that 73-win team slaying le under his belt, then blew a fart in the finals like he did in 11, people will brush off the 11 as some anomaly and that what he did previously more than offset that one "failure", and he'd be an undisputed top 3 player of all time.

It's funny how these things work.

Absolutely. Imagine if Moses 83 destruction of kareem happened before he rang?
What if magic hadnt rung twice before 83 or his "tragic" failure in 84? Winning takes the stink off failures ...but every great player has one ...