Can any of the Americans, or non americans please explain to me how the USA can lose? Against a 2nd world country, no offense, but there is more money for sports in the USA, the best competition, the best players, how can you possibly lose that? It's like schumacher losing in a Ferarri against a kart driven by a mother of three or something....well, beautiful thing, sports...
Could be due to few reasons: 1. NBA session starts in Fall and ends in Spring, all these players are out of shape or not in their peak performance. 2. Not all the best NBA players want to join the Olympics team for whatever reasons. 3. I'm not sure how well they prepared as a team. 4. They are expected to win and perhaps also under pressure. 5. They might have underestimated the opponents.
And, one the most important things, they think NBA is more important and challenging, especially for their career ... as compared to other competitions even Olympics.
Unfair treatment There are a few other reasons why the USA lost today, But I think mainly they lost because they had a bad day and P.R. had the game of there lives. If you had watched, nothing fell for the U.S. and P.R. just had all the bounces going there way. 1. International rules are freaking ridiculous, they emphasize just pure jump shooting. If you watch international ball everyone is in the middle clogging the lane. Everyone just looking for charges and there are no fouls called, like playing ghettoball. 2. The three line is like 3 feet closer, nba players are not used to shooting this kind of shot as the pay off in the nba game is not there. This distance shot is not emphasized in the nba game. 3. This is euroball, not the nba...our team has only had a couple of weeks with a finalized team to practice, where European and S.A. team have been playing there whole careers. 4. This is not the best possible team they can field notable absenses, Kobe Bryant, Tracy Mcgrady, Shaq, Vince Carter, Kevin Garrnet..etc 5. I would like to see how well a european team would do against a fully stock NBA All-Star team...playing a NBA style game...then I would be shocked to see USA lose
the play is fair though. the rules of the international tournament isn't new. NBA chooses to play their own rules is their own choice. the price they have to pay is they will lose out on international matches. surely there are better players, but if they chose not to come, you can't blame anybody but the US themselves. and the one who chose to come, they only practiced for a few week isn't any other body's fault but their own. others country probably practiced for months and years. fact is, US lost on established rules. and they field the strongest team who are willing to attend. sounds fair to me.
I am not saying its unfair...I am saying there are a variety of reason why the US lost to P.R. only shocking thing was they degree of the loss. I believe these Olympics will be a good lesson to humble the players. I am still going to say the US is the best in basketball. I just believe the international rules and lack of enthusiasm for the Olympic basketball is the reason for their loss.
The first dream team of US put together did quite well even with international rules.. So i don't think the rules attribute much to US problems /Twobeer
Italia-Usa 95-78 if nba players are so good they should win anyway, with nba and international rules. but... dream team was only 1992 team
if they got more than 6 practices and a couple of scrimages in and more player had more patriotism and less court battles...I believe they would easily win the olympics...well there is always Beijing 2008
Well they deserve to lose... US team are really out of sync.. they are not putting their effort and didnt play with heart.
That's a big IF. The USA has fielded an All Star team, not a Dream Team. They just threw out a bunch of young talent. None of the players has previous Olympic experience. An article on this year's USA basketball team by ESPN.com's Bill Simmons, who writes great and entertaining columns. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/040804 Phil
I think "Pathetic" team should be more appropriate... Anyway, the original 1992 Dream Team beat the rest of the world with an incredible average of 40+ point per game... with the international rules with maybe less than 10 trainings... etc... The point is the rest of the world has catch up with NBA... even if you put an average NBA team they should be beating any other countries easily... those NBA players are earning millions of dollar man.. no excuse whatsoever... AI, TD, Marion, Marbury.. these are All-Star player... BTW, just to let you guys know how much they earn... Nets just signed Jefferson to a 6 years 78 millions contract extension.. this is like a whopping 13 mils per year and Jefferson is not even a NBA Superstar!!! I'm a Rockets fan and this discussion is pretty much heated here : http://bbs.clutchcity.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82429 Join the BBS if you are a Rockets or Yao Ming fan...