USA Basketball LOSES AGAIN!!
 

lost to Greece of all things, personally I would of left the country if I lost to Puerto Rico

Who cares. Olympic basketball is about the only thing worse than the NBA.

I care alot abou it since im a hoopaholic, its just sad how USA Basketball cant get the team thing down, even if they have had the brightest minds in basketball coach. I mean if you cant win with Coach K, then I dont know anymore

Coach K is a first class jerk. He may be a great coach but he is very arrogant and a snob. I hope him and his team lose all their games.

I'd rather be poked and prodded with a red hot iron than watch Olympic basketball.

To each his own...I think Coach K is the best basketball coach who ever lived, this coming from a lifelong fan of Dean Smith. The USA should NEVER lose in basketball but we simply don't take it seriously enough, it's a year-round job....planning, recruiting, teaching. We need a national team with a coaching staff paid to only coach them...that isn't likely in our culture. This was a good team but far from our best...Anthony, James and Wade are superstars, the rest are good players but we lacked a center and our point guard play was just OK. Greece exposed our lack of defensive coordination (I mean really, they ran the same play over and over and we couldn't stop it) and exposed (once again) our weakness at the foul line and beyond the arc...NBA players that can't shot uncontested jumpers from the shortened arc...that's simply unacceptable! We needed Kobe, T-Mac, Shaq, AI...but more than that, we needed a team that played together! The international game is simply too different to take for granted...being the best athletes carries you only so far...about the semi-finals to be exact!

Greece had no NBA players
can think of only one in history
Rony Seikly was terrible
in the NBA, not so much at the 'Cuse
need to play at both ends guys
they had over 100 on us:mad:

Exactly! They were up 12 early and got ****y, Wade was joking on the bench that Greece didn't know what to to...guess they figured it out...they shot over 60% from the field against us...no D whatsoever!

c-o-c-k-y is the damn word!

When are you guys going to realize that 95% of the top athletes dont give a rat's ass about playing for their country when little or no money is involved? They only care about protecting their lucrative contracts and simply "show up" to these meaningless exhibitions like the Olympics so they dont look bad.
Its not just basketball either, its baseball and tennis as well.

Remember when Davis Cup actually mattered in tennis? The top guys for the US have been noticeably absent in these events, a la Jimmy Conors, Pete Sampras.

the mistake is when they didnt select Jerry Cruz to start at shooting guard

Part of the reason when the US dropped it's amateur rule regarding the Olympics it lost a lot of it's luster for me.

......couldnt of said it better myself. why SHOULD they care, its a no win situation......... if that greece team played in the N.BA they woulg be lucky to win 8 games all year.

No way would they win 8 games, no way at all.

Andre Agassi and Johnny Mac were the last 2 great americans to care about representing their country. Cant think of anyone else off the top of my head.

US Open is our last chance to see the great Andre in action, I love this guy!

The facts are as follows:

1. Basketball is now a worldwide sport. Not on the level of soccer, but second at present. There are a lot of good players in other countries.

2. The National teams of other countries have been playing together for YEARS. We think we can throw a bunch of highlight reels on the court and expect they will play as a TEAM after 3 weeks of practice.

3. We again did a horrible job selecting players. We had a very young team that would listen to coach K. And that team is extremely inexperienced. Greece ran a simple pick and roll like they had Karl Malone and John Stockton playing the roles of the Greeks. WE PLAY NO TEAM DEFENSE AGAIN!
That is the bottom line. You have got to be able to play defense.

4. Carmello Anthony, a team defender? Holy shi t. This guy is one of the most selfish YOUNG players in the league. Lebron James, he has not a clue how to play TEAM defense. Chris Bosh our big man. Yes he is very mobile, but he has no clue how to play TEAM DEFENSE. K said he would stress defense, but it was tough man to man without any direction on how to help. Awful. They score 100 pts. That is just ridiculous. We have guys out there trying to steal the ball everyplay and go coast to coast for a jam instead of just harassing guys by staying in front of them, making them make bad passes and take bad shots. They shot so many foul shots because of this gambling selfish style man to man. DEFENSE.

Oh yes. Chris Paul will end up becoming the best point guard in the world with a bit of seasoning.

if we only had Tim Duncan or Shaq. In watching the Greece game last night, im like we needed a center and it would of been all good. Kevin Garnett would of done just great

I wish we used college b ball players only. Don't know if it would have made a difference, but maybe they would show more enthusiasm?

OK.
Here is the laugher. Spain beats Greece in the FINALs 70-47 WITHOUT PAUL GASOL.

47 points. Good Lord almighty. Does this now show the board how crappy our defense was. Coach K says he is going to play tough D with a showboat crew that cant even defend a basic pick and roll. Greece scores over 100 against us and then 47 against a team without its best player. Unbelievably embarrassing.

Beating Argentina is a good thing. But again the defense was not in anyway stellar. Must give the team some credit for not laying down and getting a little bit angry.