Patty is a beast at FIBA ball. The little Champ running around All Stars looking like prime Penny. Pop would bring home da Gold if he had PatStacks.
Patty is a beast at FIBA ball. The little Champ running around All Stars looking like prime Penny. Pop would bring home da Gold if he had PatStacks.
This is a product of Silver's nba. The stars are not use to physical team work.
Pretty much why I don’t feel sympathy for these guys.
This roster may be worse than 04 tbh
Gregg is such a to reporters. Complete asshole. Doesn't let the guy finish his question, talks over him, tries to intimidate him and then gives a bull answer. "You're saying we've blown out other teams. That's not accurate." Hey Gregg, USA beat Nigeria by 83 points nine years ago and by 44 in 2016. Don't act like the question wasn't warranted. Plus, he wasn't even asking you, he was addressing Dame. Dude is such a control freak.
They seriously need to fix that. Things have swayed so much in favor of the offense that it has made the games uninteresting.
Then hope USA fail this Olympics. It's probably the only hope at this stage. When the ingredient for NBA success is to get two stars and surround them with 3&D's - then the game becomes uninteresting. Unless you cheer for the team with two stars surrounded by 3&D's
Don't disagree but it's a copout... Coach K had this same emo NBA players dominating pretty much every team in their path.
Larry Brown used to about the same back in '04, and turns out he was wrong.
Agreed. I live in NC so I have watched Coach K for years. He has a history of handling high maintenance guys before they enter the NBA. He knows how to deal with huge egos and still get them to buy into his game plan and win. Pop has always been terrible with dealing with young guys.
https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/...loss-australia
LoL all on retired in place Pop - quit both jobs and go drink your wine and disappear please
Pop should dominate this but is coaching like it's the NBA. The issue comes down to team ball vs iso ball and the lack of defense that is played in the NBA. The fault lies with the idea of the NBA modern game being better.
The problem is that the NBA doesn't give a about FIBA Basketball. They are not going to change their product just so the USA team can dominate a tournament that the majority of NBA fans doesn't even really watch.
This is going to be up to the USA Basketball program to fix. Whatever happened to holding players accountable and making them commit to the program like they did after 2004? They used to make guys actually commit to working with USAB, playing in the Worlds and qualifiers so that they actually know what FIBA basketball looks and feels like, and stick to their promise to play for the USA.
Now they just throw a team together at the last minute of the guys who can actually be bothered to show up, and that's how you end up with this ragtag bunch of borderline All-Stars instead of the dream teams. The writing was on the wall in the 2019 World Cup when the biggest star on the team was Kemba ing Walker.
Maybe they just need to revamp the program and put together a team of guys solely dedicated to FIBA basketball instead of just relying on players who treat it like some sort of free vacation.
Last edited by Dex; 07-13-2021 at 08:29 AM.
You ain’t never lied!!
team defense is bad because most of the players are poor defenders and on their NBA team aren’t asked to really defend. Too much isolation on offense because the players are so used to doing it on their NBA team. USA has great individual talent overall but has no clue how to play together.
Pop is going to have to coach this team and hurt some superstar players feelings. He is gonna have to play guys like Bam and Grant more over guys with higher NBA cache.
Or maybe the World is just catching up
Funny you mention that, because Grant looked pretty good with the starting unit yesterday. Was playing solid defense and picking his spots well.
Keldon Johnson also looked good in his limited time, and the US had a comfortable lead at that point.
Then the going got tough in the 2nd half, the "stars" came in and tried hero-balling their way out of it, and suddenly they were down by almost double-digits.
I actually really like Lillard...but I'm starting to see why his Portland teams never get over the hump. His response to everything is to try to take a 30-footer to stop the bleeding.
The world caught up a while ago. The US still has the most abundant amount of talent, but how many foreign players were in the MVP discussion this year? It's not just that talent around the world is making the NBA, they are high quality players in the NBA. There is no guaranteed gold anymore. The US will be the favorite to win because of the depth of talent, but no doubt continuity and the fact that the best players are just weeks removed from grueling playoff series where they were the main players and were playing heavy minutes will factor into how they play for these exhibition games.
The US depth of talent is deep. Imagine that players such as Curry, Kawhi, George, Lebron, and Davis are not there. And I'm sure there are others. This is not the best team USA has fielded or could field.
i watched the game last night and by mid to late 3rd quarter I knew USA would lose because Pop stuck with the “star” players way too long when the lead evaporated.
to be fair to Pop and the coaching staff though. Coach K years before knew which players would play in the Olympics and they had way longer to prepare for the Olympics. They even had them play in FIBA tournaments to help with seeding and gel as a team. The last few tournaments were G-League guys who actually did well because they built a team not a bunch of individuals. The reason they started it the way they did with Coach K and Colangelo running is due to the NBA losing in past Olympics because they were just throwing teams together at the last minute. This situation is very similar to that. I know most folks who are complaining and bashing Pop don’t want to hear that though. Lol.
Pop definitely deserves some blame for them losing these 2 games though. He is going to have to bruise egos by benching some of these guys if they don’t buy into a more team concept. These guys are gonna have to play defense also. Too many times I seen players not even closing out hard on shooters in the first 2 exhibitions or not talking defensively. I honestly think Middleton, Holiday, and Booker will help a lot because they all are good offensively and good (Booker is getting better) defensively.
They are gonna need guys who play both sides of the ball to win gold and Pop is going to have to roll sometimes with lesser players in name recognition to win gold.
Folks really hyping up a Patty Mills led team and acting like a team with KD, Lillard, and Tatum is weak Spurm fans man...
None of these games even matter yet. Every year the international teams are going to get better and this is not the strongest USA team. Gotta put things into context besides "Pop sucks". He also has a world class coaching staff as well so why aren't they to blame? The team is just not ready for teams that have been practicing more lately and itching to get out there while most these guys' bodies are ready for vacation after that grueling season. Not to mention not a lot of practice time.
Truth. The last two MVP’s are foreign players, and not including Doncic who will be in the years to come. That Nigerian team did not look anything like what Barkeley used elbow around. That block by Achiuwa on Durant was unreal
I mean...they lost to a Patty Mills led team who also lost their starting center (and NBA player) in the first quarter, so....
Every game Team USA plays, their opponent is going to give everything to win. For them, beating Team USA is like winning the gold. That’s true even in exhibition games that the US players probably don’t even care about other than not wanting to be trolled.
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