USA Basketball

some center but wont start at center

why wouldnt he?

― pure rim rest (Spottie), Monday, June 28, 2021 7:58 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

he’s getting old and just had a huge injury?

This team will lose

to whomst

big mistake going away from the all celtics team if anything they should have gone with more celtics

theres no way you can defeat top level international competition with only one celtic

why doesn't this team have more of "the young guys"

does spottie thing kris middleton is better than jayson tatum???????????

if i'm making a team for the olympics it's like

lamelo
booker
tatum
zion
ayton

trae
donovan mitchell
ingram
bam
myles turner

ja
brown

idk just spitballing but i think they're all under 25 and this would be way more fun

and they would just athletic those euros out of the gym

does spottie thing kris middleton is better than jayson tatum???????????

guess i'm in charge of team usa now, it's a burden but i will do my best for my country

https://acegif.com/wp-content/uploads/flag-america-usa.gif

if i'm making a team for the olympics it's like

lamelo
booker
tatum
zion
ayton

trae
donovan mitchell
ingram
bam
myles turner

jabrown

idk just spitballing but i think they're all under 25 and this would be way more fun

This team will lose

Judging on past games, international rules and officiating appear to be a difficult adjustment for US players who haven't been exposed much to them. That, plus developing a sense of your teammates by playing together, have always been the weaknesses of the US teams. The talent is always off the charts.

and they would just athletic those euros out of the gym

I respect your hoops opinions more than just about anyone, but this doesn't happen! We've been burned before with this mindset

yeah youre prob right but still it would be fun to see them try

very strange team. i dont get the k love inclusion at all
― pure rim rest (Spottie), Monday, June 28, 2021

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/q-and-a/jalen-rose-on-the-nba-playoffs

You recently said that the Cavs forward Kevin Love was chosen for Team U.S.A. because there was a desire for a team that wasn’t all Black. You then said you misspoke. What do you think now about the way the team is chosen?

So being a multimedia personality, it’s like being a referee. When I blow the whistle, the team that gets the call, they go to the free-throw line and they are happy that they got the whistle in their favor. The team that the call went against, they want to challenge the call.

For me, there’s two different styles of media. There’s the news-style media, for example, that I do on “N.B.A. Countdown.” That’s where you have the stats, right, you have the facts, right, and want to make sure that you’re delivering and you’re sticking the landing. A show like “Jalen & Jacoby,” that’s a variety show. It’s an opinion show. So what you do, as you know, is to try to entertain your audience in a provocative way. You do it, in this case, through sports. So as somebody that has covered and followed the N.B.A. for as long as I have, when I first saw Team U.S.A.’s roster, the first thing that came to mind to me was that Kevin Love, based on his play this year, didn’t deserve to be on that team.

I really hate that it kind of became what it became, because everybody that we speak on—this will be my nineteenth consecutive year covering the N.B.A. on television—each of the players that I cover or talk about, or coaches, I’m one text away from that person at all times. So my first overarching point was if we had to pick twelve players to go represent Team USA, I didn’t think he should have been one of those twelve players. So then it’s, like, O.K., what is the reason that he’s on the team? My conclusion about tokenism was just an opinion; it wasn’t personal. Me saying that in 2020, that it’s O.K. to have an all-Black team, it didn’t mean that I didn’t know that we didn’t have an all-Black team in the past. I clearly do know that. But, also, when you’ve been doing this for so very long, you assess yourself. One of the reasons that I feel that I went wrong is because I’m integrated in the N.B.A. family. If that’s going to be somebody’s opinion, which is a valid opinion that a lot of people are going to have when they see that roster—if that’s going to be said, I deduced that it shouldn’t be said by me.

pretty much, and i think he'd agree with your paraphrase!

Popovich and the Team USA coaching staff running lines at practice: pic.twitter.com/OrdDRnHdCd

— Noah Magaro-George (@N_Magaro) July 9, 2021

lol nice

Kerr absolutely dogging it

was gonna say something about him then remembered the crazy back stuff he had going on recently. whole spine might be fused together.

all fun and games until pop has a coronary

nigerian team is very impressive!

This team will lose

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, June 28, 2021 7:16 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nigeria's eight NBA players on its training camp roster:

Precious Achiuwa (Miami)

Chimezie Metu (Sacramento)

Jordan Nwora (Milwaukee)

Jahlil Okafor (Detroit),

Josh Okogie (Minnesota)

KZ Okpala (Miami)

Miye Oni (Utah)

Gabe Nnamdi Vincent (Miami)

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) July 9, 2021

uhhh

Team USA has now lost to Australia 91-83, dropping to 0-2 in exhibition play.

— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) July 13, 2021

its because they don't have Middleton and Holiday

this is feeling 2004y in the sense that they just loaded up with stars without thinking about roster construction or continuity

Seems bad.

is pop uhh doing a good job over there

sort of feel like international games don’t really matter, they should just award the game to the team with the best players

is pop uhh doing a good job over there

― lag∞n, Monday, July 12, 2021 10:16 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

nope!

is pop uhh doing a good job over there

― lag∞n, Monday, July 12, 2021 9:16 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol i feel like every player says they wanna play for him but never want to get yelled at by him so i kinda feel like his magic is pretty limited in this venue

like if this was 10 years ago he'd be chewing them out for being gutless and not respecting their competition and not sharing the ball, but this is a working vacation for these guys

yeah it kinda seems like the players view it more as a some sort of nba bonding retreat rather than a thing where you try to win the games whenever they ask the celtics who were on that last team about it they talk like they had an amazing time lol

yeah the stakes could not possibly be lower

xp that's well said, i think usa basketball is a pretty flawed concept until they get embarrassed and then next time everybody gets pissed off and they try hard for one event. it will never happen but i wonder what it would look like if they took a harder stance on participation, like right now it seems like anyone who's a big enough name who wants to play gets to play and they're scared to say no since that would alienate that guy forever. but that is not a sound method of team building.

lol

.@BasketballAus Welcome.

pic.twitter.com/oYoah7R6uA

— D’Tigers | Nigeria Basketball (@NigeriaBasket) July 13, 2021

if you look back at the last three teams we were sending guys like... KD, lebron, kobe, wade, harden, cp3, melo, brow, kyrie, dwight howard all in their primes.

the guys on this team who are in their primes are like... lillard, brad beal, zach lavine. maybe the younger guys like tatum and bam are close. booker, middleton... but they're not even there.

anyway it's just a totally different tier of player than we've been sending lately. i'm not sure it's a roster construction problem as much as it is a talent problem, relative to the expectation

tbh just seems like they're in a transition period between eras, which is pretty much what 2004 was. most of the best american players are older now, the guys who will be the next superstar class (zion, lamelo, trae, ja, tatum etc) are still a bit younger, not to mention guys like cade cunningham, jalen suggs, chet

Feel like US shouldn't need several future HOFers in their prime to beat any other nation. Other teams have some decent players but they play MUCH better at a team. It's such an American mindset to think you can just throw a bunch of talent or Raytheon missiles at another nation and they'll be so shocked and awed that you won't even need to plan any strategery.

Pop shoulda retired w Duncan imo

cant blame him, the post-duncan spurs were in title contention, then they werent. i keep thinking that he sticks around bc he wants to leave the spurs in a more stable spot before peacing out. he was too proud to retire when kawhi forced his way out, and i think that plus his wife passing has put him in a spot where its like...what else does he have left?

Yah, just kinda sad all around. Wonder if he’s be good at calling games

Other teams have some decent players but they play MUCH better at a team. It's such an American mindset to think you can just throw a bunch of talent or Raytheon missiles at another nation and they'll be so shocked and awed that you won't even need to plan any strategery.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, July 13, 2021 1:02 AM (forty-one minutes ago)

well, it's endemic to the US having an enormous surplus of qualified olympian basketball players, there's going to be more players in the pool, less continuity etc. the other countries who play well together typically have a small group of NBA caliber players who have played in international competition for a decade bcuz they have to in order for the country to be competitive on the international level. this australian team is basically the same one that played in the FIBA world cup in 2019 and very similar to their 2016 olympic team, and patty mills, joe ingless, dellavedova all played in the 2012 olympics. the only player on the USA 2019 FIBA team (which didn't even medal) that played tonight was tatum, and there wasn't a single person from the 2016 olympic team who played in the FIBA world cup, and only KD and draymond were both on the 2016 and 2020 teams, and KD is the only guy from the 2012 team, so the chain has been broken several times over.

i guess the solution would be to require 4 or 6 year commitments out of players but we know that something like that would only drive away the best american players who want to take summers off to rest their bodies for the basketball that actually matters, so i can't blame either team USA or the players for not working something like that out. also even then, you're often dealing w/ other international teams that have guys who have been playing together for like 10 years.

when the US has its best players out there, and those players have played a few times before -- like the lebron, wade, kobe, melo, cp3 era teams -- they have proven unbeatable, altho even the 2016 team got pushed by an argentina team that had been together for a long time. there's going to be parts of the cycle where the guys who have accomplished everything you could possibly accomplish at the international level drop out, and the replacements don't have the talent/continuity combo to beat some of the international teams that have been at it forever. tho it should be noted this team hasn't actually lost anything aside from exhibition games which exist to foster the continuity so we'll see how it goes

and i think this year even if guys like lebron, harden, kyrie, AD, donovan mitchell had agreed to play they all would've dropped out after being injured in the playoffs

pic.twitter.com/cBgllDhh6R

— jason c. (@netw3rk) July 13, 2021