I've managed to watch all of Team USA's Olympic Basketball games so far. It's been a pretty one sided affair but it's definitely been interesting to watch. Here are a few of my thoughts.
1. Kobe Bryant is not the one of the best players on this team – I'm not really sure what Kobe Bryant is giving the United States outside of leadership right now. He is too slow to really make an impact on defense and he is determined to be a star on offense when he never gets an open shot. I've only seen him hurt this team while he's been on the court so far and I don't think anyone has the balls to tell him that. The idea that he's playing more minutes than Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, Russell Westbrook, or even James Harden is ridiculous.
I know this will cause the Kobe defenders to go crazy and claim none of those players are better than Kobe. I'm not arguing that they are. I'm arguing that on this specific team he shouldn't be playing more than those other guys. All he's been doing is taking contested shots and looking out of sync with everyone else. It's really strange to watch.
2. And you thought flopping was bad in the NBA – After watching all of Team USA's games and a collection of the other games, I can safely say that flopping is way worse overseas. Watching Spain and Argentina play is just a painful process as their players just fall all over the court. Manu Ginobli and Luis Scola are on Argentina so you can imagine what that is like to watch. I almost pulled all the hair out of my head during the first half of the USA-Argentina game.
One play of note was at the very end of the 1st half when Lebron James fell down at half court on defense and Ginobli went out of his way to go towards James and proceeded to fall down as if James had just scissor kicked him from the ground. This seemed significant at the time as it made the game a 1 point game going into the half. Don't they give refs a training session on Ginobli before games? It's crazy how many flop calls this guys had go in his favor throughout his career.
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They seriously don't warn officials about this guy?
The runner up flop came when the replacement point guard for Argentina, Facundo Campazo, just fell down as Kevin Durant came near him when Durant didn't even have the ball on a fast break. I don't even understand how this could've possibly been interpreted as a foul.
3. Dream Team Comparisons are silly – This 92' vs 2012 team argument is just absolutely ridiculous. It's stupid to compare them because the 92' team played in a much more physical hand checking era and the 2012 team actually has to play against real competition. I hear people saying that the 92' team could actually play defense and the 2012 team clearly lacks in that department, but who did the 92' team ever have to play defense against? Defense is a team concept and just because you have 5 good defensive players on the court doesn't make you a great defensive team.
They are both awesome teams with awesome players on them and we'll never see them play. We don't need to rank them and it's awfully silly to rank them before the Olympics are over this year, don't you think?
4. The lack of big men – Why is Tyson Chandler the only legitimate post defender on this team? It just doesn't make any sense to me. Everyone is criticizing this teams defense and how could we begin to think they'll be a good defensive team when they have Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant defending the paint for large chunks of time.
Wouldn't it just make sense to have Joakim Noah, Demarcus Cousins, or even Roy Hibbert on this team? It's not like this team has really struggled thus far but why even remotely have a weakness when you don't have to? I love the idea of having Noah and Chandler just there for defensive purposes. This could be the downfall of this team against Spain but I honestly can't see anyone matching up to the USA. Instead of carrying a useful center, Team USA is carrying Anthony Davis who is only on the team to play during mop up time. It makes no freaking sense at all.
5. No Announcing is the best announcing – Watching the Olympics live without announcing made me realize how completely unnecessary announcing is. It's so much better just hearing the crowd, the players, and basketball bouncing. I feel like I'm more connected to the game this way and that's sad because the entire point of announcing is so the viewer feels more connected to the game.
After having to hear Doug Collins' color commentary during the previous games, it's been a welcome relief.
I'm a little confused to why these games haven't really been on TV or why the announcing disappeared suddenly. Do we really not have enough announcers to do 7 olympic basketball games a day? Is it that challenging? It's the freaking Olympics. I'm not complaining but I'm just confused to what exactly is happening here.
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