Team USA basketball is in trouble these olympics.
In 1992, the Men’s USA Basketball team won their pre-olympic exhibitions by an average of 52.8 points. In 2008, they won by an average of 32.2 points. This year, they won by an average of 10.2 with all but two finishing with a less than 10 point margin.
Team USA assembled one of the most impressive rosters in years and… we’re down by 13 at half against Sudan… We assembled the Avengers and we getting still getting teed up? But this isn’t anything new. Even with a win against Serbia, Team USA is still in trouble and will continue to be for the next few years. Noah Lyles might’ve spurred something when he said
This year, the roster is godly, filled with players who have varying levels international experience. What I said about players resting and avoiding playing in the Olympics is no longer true this year, what I said about the team not having experience is also no longer true, but my other points still stand and it’s what everyone forgot about, so I’m gonna go through the 2 key reasons why Team USA will still continue to get worse unless they address it. And it starts with leadership, and no I’m not talking about LeBron. No I’m talking about the Team USA program, but to understand, we have to first understand why Team USA lost in 2004 before the world had caught up and what USA did to fix that.
And that’s exactly what happened the past few years, but this time it was load managing. Players choosing to rest, not wanting to play voluntary extra games. The fire had been lost but just like the 2004 loss woke up players and led to one of the greatest olympic teams in history, the 2008 redeem team, filled with the best the NBA had to offer. Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, this was no joke and it was filled with a mix of players who had some international experience and some with none. But that team did something differently, something that set them up for years of success.
Team USA brought in Coach K to shake things up in the program and yeah he would, but the players were also committed to spending time playing with each other. See, Jerry CoIangelo, the Suns owner at the time, became the director of USA basketball in 2005, and chose Coach K to be the national coach and not just the Olympic coach. For the 2006 FIBA Tournament, the Team USA program tried to pick players who would also be available for the 2008 olympics and build a core. It was this idea to have players build and grow with each other over multiple competitions and not just one month before the Olympics. They told stars that they were committing to 3 summers. In 2006, all the players for the olympic trials stayed together in Vegas for a month. In 2007, the roster was finalized with Kobe on it and went through another intense training camp. And to top it off, in 2007, they had one of the greatest games the public has ever seen, with LeBron, Kobe going at it, a freshly drafted KD making his mark, capping off with Kobe hitting a game winner.
Of course when the stars finally decided to play for the olympic team, it was a no brainer right. You would be crazy to say no to LeBron, Curry, Durant, especially after the roster from last year.
Steph Curry said it himself that we haven’t seen Team USA’s best offense through these exhibition games. Even if USA is able to beat some of the lower teams, what we haven’t seen is a fluid offense. We’ve seen players late to hustle back, late to rotate. For all of LeBron’s heroics against Sudan, man had his hands down down 2. Team USA’s rotations have also been inconsistent, sometimes there’s weakside help, sometimes there’s not and no it’s not by design.
Team USA no longer has the best players in the world on paper. Giannis, Jokic, Luka 3 of the top 6 players in the world are not from the US and this trickles throughout the league.
But even with the increase in NBA players on other teams, even those teams try to stay consistent with their cores. Take a look at Canada’s Fiba team from last year and their olympic team this year, 8 of their players returned.
If we take a look at France in the same way, 7 players came back.
With Team USA, it’s 2. 2 players that aren’t even part of the new core.
And that leads to an easy solution, keep your core the same. I know it’s enticing to just pick the best players available and it’s a good problem to have when you can replace one all-star with another. That’s how deep the roster selection can go for the US, but try to have certain cores together for a minimum of two years. Stress to players that this is a 2 year minimum commitment and try to have half the roster return. Technically, even if you don’t have the current best players by the second year and you just have B tier superstars, if they have chemistry with each other, then that is better than A tier superstars with no chemistry. It’s as simple as that.