My choice:
Paul/Hinrich
Wade/Arenas
James/Anthony/Bowen
Brand/Stoudemire*
Howard/Bosh/Miller
* if healthy. If not, the slot is for Battier.
Out: Johnson and Jaminson
Two PG, 5 wing players, 5 frontcourt players. Let's see how the coaching staff assemble this team. I am still waiting for them to play together as a team, in particular defend together as a team.
I can see potential team/locker-room disruptions from Carmelo, Lebron, Amare, Arenas and Wade in that order. Brand, Bowen and Miller should be the emotional glue for this team in order to succeed.
Who's going to play defense (other than Bowen and maybe Brand)? A few guys are going to have to sacrifice a little offense and expend more energy on the defensive end and I'm not sure who's going to be willing to do that. And even if they do expend the energy, most of these guys just aren't very good at playing defense.
I don't know, because I am not in the training camp with them.
On paper, a lineup of:
Paul
Wade
Bowen
Brand
Bosh
... could be a very good defensive team.
Anthony and Arenas are the worst defenders on this team. Neither Paul nor Hinrich are huge defensive specialists, but they are good enough to stay in front of people in most cases.
Stoudemire and Howard are not bad, and Miller could be a better defender with internaltional rules than he is in the NBA. Defensively Lebron James in an unknown quan y... he could potentially be a GREAT defender, but he has to put his mind into it... he very often has lapses, cheating off his man, not runninng, etc. If he starts missing defensive assignments, I would bench his ass and put Bowen instead.
In any case, defense is more effort than X's and O's. Rotate, help, communicate, cover. The coach has to find the right group of guys that communicate and help each other. He has 25 more days to find out.
I doubt it. You can`t compare professional teams with national. Players in professional teams play together for the large part of the year. Players in national teams usually play together for a few months.No in way man. For example Argentina or Lithuania of 2004 would easily advance a few rounds of the playoffs.
Again, national teams can`t compare with professional ones. If you`d send a good Euroleague club to a world championship or something, they`d probably beat up on everyone too.How many players like that are there in the world? The gap is still pretty huge in my opinion. The problem isn't our skills, it's that they are better teams. If you sent a very average NBA team over to Europe (like...the Hornets) they would probably beat up on the Euro's.
The difference between U.S. players and the rest is their speed and strength, athleticism. In everything else they are either pretty equal or the rest are somewhat better.
So, IMO if the U.S. made a team, a real team, they`d still be the best, mostly because of their physical superiority. But the rest of the world is gaining them on that as well.
I agree with what you said about defense, and I like your starting lineup.
The key is finding the right balance of offense and defense, and having some different lineups to be able to adapt to different situations. For example, Jamison may not be the most effective defender, but he could be a gifted offensive player off the bench in international ball. Paul isn't a great defender, but makes up for it with floor leadership. Heinrich is a better defender, and a nice guy to be able to bring in off the bench.
I like the idea of rotating Wade and LeBron in a pure scoring slot at SG and rotating Bowen and Battier as designated defender at SF -- that gives them plenty of pop out there on the floor, but still gives them the ability to shut guys down. If you need extra offense to break down the other team, you can always sit both Bowen and Battier and play some combination of Wade, LeBron, and Melo.
Edit: oops, that's not your starting lineup. But I like the idea of using that as one.
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