NBC: Kyle Lowry Outperformed Kyrie Irving in Rio

[Anticon]

It's not surprising Kyle was better - he had the 2nd best RPM of any NBA player in the Olympics. The only player ahead of him was Draymond, who was in his post-dick pic/no Curry period of decline.

It's still amazing that people don't realize that Durant, Thompson and Irving are just not good two-way players. Combining those guys with Melo was really gonna expose that.

[0 - 100]

Will be interesting to see how Popovich handles all these stars and how he plans to use them. You'd have to think there would be more emphasis on passing and offensive flow because that was severely lacking on this year's team.

Mind you, they were only together for a month but I think Pop will do a better job in style of play than what Coach K did this year.

There's no doubt in my mind that Deandre Jordan and Kyle Lowry should have been starters. I understand he had to start Melo because of his last year and his commitments but he looked like garbage out there.

I think Coach K's strategy was to not reinvent the wheel. Throw a bunch of the most talented guys on the floor and win through sheer talent.

People forget the mental aspect of the game. The US roster is so absolutely stacked that it's probably best to just manage egos and let the talent take over. I'd say that the role of coach of the US men's basketball team is to create a great atmosphere, a good structure and then get out of the way.

The problem is their offensive structure wasn't there at all. Durant bailed them out way too many times and without him, they don't win gold. Too many guys jacking shots this year and the lack of a true floor general really hurt them. If Spain had their full crew, US would have been in trouble.

[Latrell]

Didn't Coach K call out Lowry for not trying to score? That seems rather insane in retrospect, considering you have a bunch of the best scorers in the entire world on your team.

I think at the time Kyle was passing up wide open looks. He's a good shooter, I think Coach K wanted him to be confident in shooting the ball.

[Basketball_Jones]

I still take Kyrie any day. Once he figures it out he's basically gonna be like Curry.

[Mack11]

Lowry is cool and all, but our other all-star and 140M man went out to Rio and outperformed NBA Champion Harrison Barnes. What a beast.

[Rapcity_11]

It's not surprising Kyle was better - he had the 2nd best RPM of any NBA player in the Olympics. The only player ahead of him was Draymond, who was in his post-dick pic/no Curry period of decline.

It's still amazing that people don't realize that Durant, Thompson and Irving are just not good two-way players. Combining those guys with Melo was really gonna expose that.

Did you just call Klay NOT a 2-way player?

[SwiftyV]

Didn't Coach K call out Lowry for not trying to score? That seems rather insane in retrospect, considering you have a bunch of the best scorers in the entire world on your team.

I think at the time Kyle was passing up wide open looks. He's a good shooter, I think Coach K wanted him to be confident in shooting the ball.

This is literally what K meant.

K has always shown confidence in his players and if a player has shown the ability to knock down open looks like Kyle has then K will tell them to shoot their shot.

[itsme23]

Kyrie's stock is at on all time high because of his great playoff stretch. Im of the opinion that his high recent success has a great deal to do with the Lebron factor.

Before Lebron, Kyrie was Kemba Walker esque in my opinion.

Lowry is currently the better all around player with Kyrie being the better scorer. Obviously Kyrie will soon be better than Lowry though due to age. However the gap is slim.

1. Curry
2. Goatbrook
3. Lillard (He's not rated here but is better than the gentleman below)
4. C.Paul



5. Lowry, Kyrie, Wall, Conley (In whatever type of order that floats your boat, but their all fairly even)

[SwiftyV]

Watch on YouTube

Bruh.

We didn't win it all...but man what a ride those playoffs were. I streamed this entire game on my phone while on vacation in San Francisco just walking around the Fishermans Wharf with my family. 2+ hours of just looking down at my phone and avoiding bumping into people.

[Inevitable]

Wish we had Paul George man...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Why man, we have DeRozan locked up no room for any other shots

[Patman]

Yes they would.

They own Serbia, but I don't know if they get past Spain if their bench was just full of replacement-level NBA players.

Any NBA playoff team would be able to win Olympic gold.

They would be the favourites, I would agree. An NBA playoff team would have had the benefit of having built chemistry through 82 regular season games. You can't just throw a bunch of talent that don't regularly play together and expect to not be challenged. That's why the US had to overhaul their program to begin with. Even if you have Hall-of-Famers in their prime like AI and Tim Duncan doesn't mean you're guaranteed gold.

I do give USAB credit from making the most of what they had. A lot of the guys they would've wanted took a pass for various reasons. Guys like Curry and LeBron are not just immense talents, but would also fit well in any scheme.

[Boogie!]

imagine lowry/powell/george/sullinger/valanciunas

pretty solid team.

[720]

imagine lowry/powell/george/sullinger/valanciunas

pretty solid team.

That backcourt...so **** beautiful.

[SaveTheHens]

Any NBA playoff team would be able to win Olympic gold.

That's a blind & overconfident statement. Stir up the pot if you will with bold statements but your undervaluing the level of chemistry & coaching of the other Olympic teams.

You might also be underestimating the sheer talent gap between Team USA and other countries. Would you think a D-League team with great chemistry and coaching would have a chance against a team that's basically All-NBA teams 1+2+3?

2004 olympics is all the proof i need

[Senbonzakura]

Lowry is a better off the ball offensive player than Kyrie and a better defender in all scenarios, who has a higher upside as a scorer.

This is sort of simplistic but It's like that other thread where people are arguing about Middleton vs DeRozan;, you can argue over who is the better player but a stacked team like team USA, Golden State, Cleveland shouldn't hesitate a second to pick Middleton, a regular good team like Boston or Memphis are mostly better off picking Middleton, an average team like Detroit should argue long and hard and hopeless teams with little shot creation or ballhandling ability like Sacramento or the Lakers would be improved more by DeRozan.

Style comes into this obviously. Chicago has no spacing with Rondo-Wade-Butler so DeRozan would help them less than Middleton, while a similar level team with better shooting might want DeRozan, but basically, 3PT SHOOTING and DEFENCE translate everywhere and if you lack either of those things and you're not the alpha of the team it gets dicey and if you lack both you're probably best off coming off the bench and being the alpha for half or 2/3rds of your minutes.

3PT Shooting and defense don't translate everywhere. If you can't create shots then you can't play well on a team that doesn't have any shot creators. 3PT shooting and defense work well when you have guys who can penetrate the defense, attract attention and create opportunities for those shooters.

People need to stop perpetuating this myth. You need BOTH types of players, shot creators and shooters, not just one or the other.

[RaptorsJunkie]

coah K is hella overrated. I hope I can still use the word hella.

WTF man... never question the word hella!

[binjumper]

So If Kyle outperformed Kyrie and Kyrie outperformed curry then that means Kyle > Kyrie > Curry? am i doing this right?

[LLJ]

[greennotgreen?]This is all just a US ploy to pry Lowry off the Raptors come free agency.[/greennotgreen?]

[Senbonzakura]

It's not surprising Kyle was better - he had the 2nd best RPM of any NBA player in the Olympics. The only player ahead of him was Draymond, who was in his post-dick pic/no Curry period of decline.

It's still amazing that people don't realize that Durant, Thompson and Irving are just not good two-way players. Combining those guys with Melo was really gonna expose that.

Did you just call Klay NOT a 2-way player?

He's an overrated defender. Look at his numbers on that end. He gets a lot of credit because he takes Curry's matchup a lot, but it's not like you can stick him on the other team's best wing player and he's going to stop that guy. He's just solid defensively, nothing special.

[slothrop8]

That's a blind & overconfident statement. Stir up the pot if you will with bold statements but your undervaluing the level of chemistry & coaching of the other Olympic teams.

You might also be underestimating the sheer talent gap between Team USA and other countries. Would you think a D-League team with great chemistry and coaching would have a chance against a team that's basically All-NBA teams 1+2+3?

2004 olympics is all the proof i need

Argentina's 2004 team was dramatically better than any non-US team in this 2016 field though. The 2016 Raptors would roll this Olympic field. Outside of maybe Spain (big maybe) - there wasn't another team in the field this year that would make the playoffs as an NBA team.