FIBA World Cup

[pdxKingsFan]

I mean, the Dream Team had eleven Hall of Famers (and, if we're being honest, Laettner deserves to get in just on his college record), and the 1994 team had five, so it didn't feel like the 12 best players in the world.

Fair enough. I think the player mentality was still there, they wanted it. The young guys like Shaq and Zo would have had their Olympic moment in 92 had the rules not been changed to allow NBA players and I think they were eager to represent their country in a way that no FIBA World Cup and only about 2 or 3 of the future Olympic squads did. Maybe also because the soccer world cup was that summer in the USA there may have been more spotlight on just the whole "World Cup" brand as well. I don't know anything except that is the one and only time I ever thought we remotely cared about this tournament!

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Fair enough. I think the player mentality was still there, they wanted it. The young guys like Shaq and Zo would have had their Olympic moment in 92 had the rules not been changed to allow NBA players and I think they were eager to represent their country in a way that no FIBA World Cup and only about 2 or 3 of the future Olympic squads did.

To whatever extent this is true, it probably had to do with that team having several guys who felt like they had been snubbed by the Dream Team.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

To whatever extent this is true, it probably had to do with that team having several guys who felt like they had been snubbed by the Dream Team.

I mean Larry could barely walk but who is going to tell him he can't be on the team, which is probably why Mullin got the spot vs. a more athletic SF. Other than that who from 94 had a claim to that team? Nique? Miller?

Which leaves the only snub I actually thought was legit: Shaq vs. Laettner, which is almost an afterthought.

Oh and I guess IT who played on neither team but it was apparently Jordan or IT and well that might be the biggest no-brainer in basketball history.

But it was still a top level squad - if you wanted to have a team do a full World Cup to Olympic cycle they'd have been fine for 96. Good way to insert youth into the group, if consistency were a goal.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Listened to Oddball and Amin Elhassan made what I thought was a great point: for all the discourse about USA sending it's B-team or whatever, we lost pretty convincingly to a German squad whose "A-team" featured Dennis Schröder, Daniel Theis and the Wagner brothers, all of whom are considered roleplayers in the NBA. So yeah, it does ring kinda hollow and sound sour grapes-y to talk about how we would have whipped their asses if we'd sent our best guys; we should have whipped their asses with the guys we did send.

And then, on top of that, you know who also didn't send their best, and isn't making excuses? Serbia. Amin spent a couple of seconds glossing over the history of the former Yugoslavia, and then made the joke that the only reason why the United States isn't getting our asses handed to us every year is because of a civil war that happened thirty years ago.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I think what Tokyo proved was that we can send our A team and still have a high likelihood of winning with the current structure of the team.

That doesn't change the possibility that we could do more with less if we addressed it from a long term tactical standpoint and had more player continuity. I just don't see that happening as long as we still win in the Olympics with business as usual.

What we did see with this team was that players with holes in their games were getting them exposed left and right and nobody was there to cover. I have heard a lot more about the players than I have about the coaching this tourney and I'm not sure that's entirely fair.

 

[kingsboi]

the OGs saw the C squad put up a sub par performance and decided to throw their names back in the go around