True, and some of Americans have the same view. I am cheering for the USA Women’s basketball team to beat Australia today for the Gold medal.
I am cheering for the USA Men to lose to Lithuania and not even get a bronze.
As far as I’m concerned, the 2004 Olympics will be looked back on as the event where the NBA jumped the shark.
Not in my case, no, so say it to my face. I don’t have a television and I don’t get the newspaper. The only sports site I regularly visit is mlb.com for Major League Baseball. I haven’t watched a game of college or professional basketball—not even the highlights—in years. I have no idea who most of the people on that roster list are, much less what they look like or what color skin they have. I know of the US team’s progress only what I hear on the radio; that’s where I get most of my sports highlights and updates. The others I get here.
And yet somehow I still think it’s achingly funny that the US Men’s Basketball team, full of individually recognized players, are being beaten by good team play. I have long held the opinion that modern basketball Sucks Ass for several reasons, among them that fouling is becoming part of a team’s strategy; the focus is more on showcase moves than upon passing and cooperation; the few clips I see in sports bars show that the traveling rule is rarely ever called; and my local team is the Sonics, about which the less said the better. (The radio says they aren’t doing that well. Again.)
So no, racism has nothing to do with it, at least for me. I don’t see these guys on the news every night. It’s funny that they’re losing because the media has shoved Dream Team stuff down our throats for so long, I’m positively gleeful to see it backfire. I’m tickled to hear the excuses of Iverson in radio clips: they lost because of the media negativity. I’m ecstatic to hear that other nations are getting a piece of glory, because that’s what the Olympics are for. I’m hopeful that next Olympics we’ll put together a team that actually, you know, plays basketball.
But I doubt it: the media story will be “Revenge '08: Can Dream Team Make Up For '04?” and we’ll be sold how this is taking back what should rightfully be ours. Bleah.
No he didn’t. He assessed the team based on one member of it, and on an innapropriate generalisation of the NBA as a bunch of gangsters. He even admitted that he knew nothing of the character of a good number of the players.
Do a bit of googling on Duncan, Tim; Boozer, Carlos; Okefor, Emeka for starters and come back when educated.
I think this is only partially correct. The problem with the NBA is the star system. Stars don’t get fouls called on them at critical points in big NBA games; in the Olympics big star Tim Duncan had to sit out quite a bit of the semifinal game with foul trouble. I much prefer the team play style of ball that is played in the Olympics and in the WNBA but that the NBA doesn’t use anymore. Of course, team play takes time and practice and the US team was just thrown together at the last minute with little time to practice together.
OK, the Olympics are over, and congrats to the Argentinians for their well deserved gold medal. My last post was a bit snarky and I wanted to apologize for that, but this whole “cheering for the Americans to lose because I hate the NBA” thing has really irked me.
This team played hard and represented the U.S. well. Some comments from Allen Iverson:
“If you don’t get it done the way you expected to,” Iverson said, “I think it’s important that you get it done the best way you can. It’s important that we come out and fight, and get the people proud of us back home.”
“It’s an honor to be named to this team,” Iverson said. “It’s something that you should cherish for the rest of your life. And honestly, this is something that I will cherish even without winning a gold medal. I feel like a special basketball player to make it to a team like this.”
“Sometimes the historical ways to motivate a team don’t necessarily play out quite as well when you’re in an international setting,” Stern said. "This was a team that was put together, by everyone, including the coaching staff. So, I don’t buy the well, ‘I’d like to have this, I’d like to have that.’
“It’s not about who didn’t come. You take your team to the gym and you play with what you got and then you either win or lose. This whining and this carping is not fair to [those] who are representing their country admirably and well.”
On his way home, Iverson started recruiting teammates for 2008. He wants to come back again. He had the time of his life wearing the red, white and blue, and just hopes the United States will give itself its best chance for gold medal in Beijing.
“For as anybody who grew up in the U.S., and was able to be a basketball player in the NBA, you understand the things that your country has done for you and your family,” he said. "It gave you an opportunity to be able to support your family and be recognized as a household name. It was just an honor to be able to do something like that, and I would advise anybody selected to a team like this to take that honor and cherish it.
“It shouldn’t be a question in your mind. When you get a chance to represent your country, what’s better than that?”*
Pay attention, LM. The fact that Iverson is proud to be on the team isn’t important, because he released a rap album once and that makes him a Bad Person.
For some reason, your quotes didn’t pick up. This is in relation to Carley Patterson et al. looking for cash.
She’s stated that she “wants to be everyone’s spokesman” when she gets back from the Olympics. Sounds like cashing in to me.
Also, http://www.sportsbusinessnews.com/index.asp?story_id=38522. I know that doesn’t have anything to do with my quote, but I do recall seeing it in Yahoo’s! coverage but can’t find the cite. Certainly the link doesn’t prove a causality, but from the other article I read, she was definitely looking for the cash.
I think Phelps likes his Escalade too.
I know that I’m late to this party, but I was rooting (as much as I paid any attention at all) for “the other guys” without even knowing which NBA stars were on our side, just because I liked the idea that basketball is less about individual stars of great skill, than about great teams … the idea that less than the world’s best players can beat the world’s best players because they know how to function together well. Of course this applied for me during “Dream Team” too.
What the hell is this supposed to mean?
It’s pretty self-explanatory. MANY people have, including a lot of Americans, have been vocally rooting against the U.S. men’s basketball team in the Olympics. And those people usually justify themselves by ripping Allen Iverson, by calling him a thug, and by holding him up as an example of everyuthing that’s wrong with the NBA today.
Now, I don’t much like Iverson myself. He’s not a guy I’d ever hang out with (or vice versa). But some of us are trying to point out that whatever his faults, Iverson was NOT the problem with the U.S. team! Bear in mind that
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Allen Iverson agreed to play for the U.S. Olympic team, when a lot of other NBA stars wouldn’t.
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He KEPT his promise, and SHOWED UP for the Olympics, when a lot of other guys backed away from their commitments.
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Iverson played with a broken thumb, and never complained about it. Ordinarily, that kind of toughness would be respected by fans, but somehow, Iverson never got any credit for playing hurt.
You don’t have to like Iverson, but you have to admit: he did everything a fan could have asked of him, and more. So, if Americans STILL hate him… well, it obviously has very little to do with what he’s done on the court.
American fans who hated this “Dream Team” (and really, WHO called this squad “the Dream Team” apart from media members who were using the name sarcastically?) may not be racist, but it’s clear that many of them were judging the players superficially. Airman Doors and people like him don’t hate Iverson because he’s black, but they probably DO hate him because he wears cornrows, tattoos and a lot of bling bling. And while it isn’t racism to dislike a player for that reason, it IS pretty silly.
It’s a dig at the statements made earlier in the thread about “gangsta” stylings.
I’m with Fish and Boo Boo Foo on this one… the NBA guys come up thru a superstar-centered system that conditions them to come across as Too Cool For School (sometimes literally – e.g. LeBron). This rubs many people the wrong way.
“Too Cool For School”? Where do you get that? You think he skipped college because of his attitude? Try “Too Good For School”.
If the NBA was nothing but ‘gangstas’ and the ‘gangstas’ could play the best international team basketball in the world, they would have won.
The US team isn’t thugs, or punks, or guys with bad attitudes, but it is a reflection of where basketball has been headed for over a decade.
I routed for them to lose because the NBA is more like the WWE in that the show is the draw, not the sport of basketball. The NBA is about showmanship.
The showmanship went to new levels when Jordan made highlite reels 1000% more interesting. Ironically, Jordan might have saved the NBA, but he might have left a mark they haven’t erased yet: That everyone wants to be the best highlite reel player and be Mr. Showtime. The problem with that is that Michal Jordan could shoot the lights out and was great in many aspect of the game, the sport, the show and the PR.
It’s gonna happen is baseball soon. Barry Bonds is a great baseball player, but his highlite reels are all homers, where he crushes the ball and watches it sail into another area code briefly before he starts his home run trot. Give it ten to fifteen years before we get a league of players who emnulate only this one part of Bonds’ game, and you we see averages plummet and strikeouts go throught the roof. MLB will be strikouts and homers.
Good explanation Astorian, thanks
Following on this, and on what my brother Fish said above, what are the odds that some smart NBA club will look at what happened in the Olympics and suddenly recognize a way to win? What happens if some club’s management and coaches takes the team into a closed-door meeting and says something like this: “Don’t feel angry and sad that the NBA players were showed up by the world. Feel joy at the opportunity. We’ve been given a gift, people. We’ve been shown how to dominate the court. Now, I’ll admit, if we do it that way, you as individuals will get picked out for highlight reels less often, because team play doesn’t coexist well with showboating. But here’s the thing: we now have concrete evidence that team play means winning over the showboats. At the beginning of the season, you won’t be as famous, but at the end of the season, when we’ve run the table by systematically dismantling every other team, you guys are going to be fucking heroes. And here’s how we’re going to do it…”
Now, obviously, in order for this to work, you’d have to deal with the painfully lax officiating. You could maybe take advantage of certain aspects of it in your strategy; if the big stars get more leeway on travel calls, you design the machine to shovel to those guys when you need that kind of action. But it’s still a functioning team machine. Given the state of the league, if you can get the players to buy into it, you could destroy the opposition.
Is there any chance at all of getting today’s players to put the short-term bling on hold for a long-term shot at unparalleled glory?
You’re begging the question on “showboating” and “teamwork” by presuming this is the reason the US lost and other teams won. That is a false assumption. I have to assume that you didn’t actually watch any of the games, because this team worked hard on offense and defense, moved the ball well, and played as a team. They just didn’t shoot very well.
A big part of the problem is that the rules of international basketball are different than what the US players have learned all their lives, and it is hard to adapt in a short time. I’ll bet the US team didn’t once swat the ball off the rim as you can do in international ball, and as other teams did repeatedly. The center position, which is key in the US, is marginalized because the lane is much wider near the basket, so the US offense had to do away with their most common plays. The three point line is also much closer, making that a bigger part of the game.
All this commentary on teamwork and one-on-one play are more examples of the prejudice this team has been placed under.
Well, to those who really know the game, it was obvious this team didn’t bust ass on defense like a Larry Brown coached team should. A Larry Brown coached team gives up some O for some D. It counts on the D.
They eventually meant business, but the defensive effort came late in some games, and generally late in the tournament.
Also, because the NBA has become showmanship, defending the perimeter is something these guys were ill suited to do. They didn’t instinctively sense the open man, and they were not pre-emptive in fighting the outside game - rather they were reactive and not well trained in the defensive aspects. Sure, part of who the US selection committe chose and part of what league style they are familiar with played into it.
Did they shoot poorly? Yes. You could shoehorn any reason for this. Again, it was partly because they didn’t bring the best shooters. But… they did bring a pretty slick collection of NBA hot shots. The fact that you can be a hotshot in the NBA and not shoot well says tons about the NBA. Okay, maybe a league where a few superstars couldn’t shoot would be normal…maybe because they had other attributes they reached stardom…
…but we’re talking about a league where too many superstars can’t shoot well, even when measured against a shorter three-point arc?