OT: London 2012 Olympic Basketball Thread

Post #221 » by **kulaz3000** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:34 pm

I'm going to be honest, I'm having a difficult time watching the USA basketball team play, knowing that Derrick should be running the point.

Post #222 » by **kingkirk** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:37 pm

suckfish wrote:The NBA timeout rule pisses me off. You're about to fall out of bounds or get tied up and turn the ball over, oh wait, I'll call a timeout in midair or while I'm to lose the ball..

Stupid. It's a bail out. Should be dead ball timeouts only.

Agreed.

Its a cheap bailout.

Dont even get me started on 'travelling'.

Post #223 » by **pduh01** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:41 pm

KingCuban wrote:
suckfish wrote:The NBA timeout rule pisses me off. You're about to fall out of bounds or get tied up and turn the ball over, oh wait, I'll call a timeout in midair or while I'm to lose the ball..

Stupid. It's a bail out. Should be dead ball timeouts only.

Agreed.

Its a cheap bailout.

Dont even get me started on 'travelling'.

Traveling? In the NBA? What is that? :wink:

Post #224 » by **kingkirk** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 12:02 am

Exactly!!!

Bullflip · Post #225 » by **Bullflip** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 6:49 am

Olympics basketball is too boring. They should just either let the US college players or maybe rookies/2nd year NBA players play in these games. International teams are so bad its funny. American players are so far ahead of these international players, it's not even funny anymore.

Post #226 » by **kulaz3000** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 7:00 am

Bullflip wrote:Olympics basketball is too boring. They should just either let the US college players or maybe rookies/2nd year NBA players play in these games. International teams are so bad its funny. American players are so far ahead of these international players, it's not even funny anymore.

You must have missed the period where there was a reason why the United States first wanted to send in their pros (the dream team) to begin with.

You must have also missed that period where the USA basketball team lost in World Championships, as well as Olympic basketball competition, and that's why they decided to implement the 4-year commitment style program.

Most talented, definitely. But just because there are several bad teams, doesn't mean there aren't other good teams who will challenge them either. Wait until it goes into sudden death rounds and the competition will become tougher for the USA team.

Post #227 » by **kingkirk** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 10:15 am

Bullflip wrote:Olympics basketball is too boring. They should just either let the US college players or maybe rookies/2nd year NBA players play in these games. International teams are so bad its funny. American players are so far ahead of these international players, it's not even funny anymore.

Typical arrogance.

Australia got owned by Spain last night, but watching the way the Spanish play the game was refreshing.

USA deserves to be favorites, but watching the challenges take it up to them is always great.

Post #228 » by **Three34** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 10:33 am

Bullflip wrote:Olympics basketball is too boring. They should just either let the US college players or maybe rookies/2nd year NBA players play in these games. International teams are so bad its funny. American players are so far ahead of these international players, it's not even funny anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_FIBA_ ... sification

bledredwine · Post #229 » by **bledredwine** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 11:51 am

Not going to lie,

from the two games I've watched thus far, this is the most boring team USA I've watched. They're very good, but they haven't played with fire yet.

Hopefully, a team will bring it soon and the beast will be woken.

Post #230 » by **RedBulls23** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 2:33 pm

When do the "sudden death" rounds begin?

Post #231 » by **suckfish** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 4:34 pm

Actually, if anything is boring this tournament, it's team USA taking turns to chuck 3's all game. Their style of play has been a little disturbing.

Post #232 » by **suckfish** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 4:35 pm

Pong-Man83 wrote:When do the "sudden death" rounds begin?

Wednesday. 3 more days of group play to go.

Post #233 » by **Rerisen** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 4:45 pm

suckfish wrote:Actually, if anything is boring this tournament, it's team USA taking turns to chuck 3's all game. Their style of play has been a little disturbing.

We just need more Brow. Lob city.

Post #234 » by **suckfish** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 8:11 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXYOPDjtFC0[/youtube]

RoseTheFuture22 · Post #235 » by **RoseTheFuture22** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 9:18 pm

There's probably a simple answer to this but why do lousy teams like Tunsinia and Nigeria get into the Olympics over solid teams like Turkey, Italy, Greece, and Germany?

Post #236 » by **Rerisen** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 9:23 pm

I want to go back about how the US team is playing a bit. They won by 47 points but didn't play the right way? Come on, people sound like Thibs now.

I have no doubt the coaches are talking about improvement in the off days, but its not realistic you are going to maximize every possession in such a game, to try and win by 60 or such. The other INTL teams don't do that either. They hide stuff, don't always run out their top guys, etc.

I remember a half dozen spectacular poster dunks, so its not like they were just bombing outside only.

Besides which, you won't beat USA by giving them just open jumpers anymore. They sent flawed teams way back that were susceptible to that. But on this squad, someone, and usually two people, are going to get hot from deep every game. The short line is a gimmie for Durant and Melo, and even guys like LeBron and Kobe are going to nail a lot of those.

If anything it was their defense that was a bit lazy, as beyond the top 2 or 3 prime contenders, most these teams only shot is to get real hot from deep themselves. And Team USA has no reason they should be giving those shots up freely. Let them try to beat you on penetration and rely on speed and length of the roster to turn them over.

Team US is never going to play a FIBA style game, with tons of passing around, and off ball slips and such. People need to just stop pining for that to happen.

I think they are playing fine. Which is not to say they can't lose. It's basketball and the competition is risen enough that can lose to good teams on any give day, but I don't see slacking out there. Since the fiasco years, Coach K is what, like 55-1 or something. Hard to do much better than that.

What I see, is this team's standard M.O. is to start out very disjointed, and play pretty crappy in the 1st quarter, sometimes lethargic longer. But as they get a feel for the other team, and figure out which couple guys have it going that particular game, they really start to get dialed in and seem to just steadily apply the pressure, especially defensively. Opposing offenses seem to break down more and more as they battle against the quickness and speed of the US team. And stamina becomes a factor for opponents, especially due to the depth we have.

Post #237 » by **suckfish** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 9:39 pm

My comment was specifically aimed at the starting 5 who got outplayed by Tunisia, by far the worst team in the tournament, which forced Coach K bench them. Mainly because they were tossing up crap from the outside.

They played the same way against Argentina in their friendly game. I'm sure they'll be fine, but if they get caught up settling for jumpers like they have been at times, then they'll get beat.

Post #238 » by **Rerisen** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 9:44 pm

A lot of it also was Tunisia got hot from outside early. Though I agree they should not have been that open. Romdhane did have a legit nice game, but hey players really get fired up to play this team sometimes. And some of that was probably the US lack of size inside. Love isn't a good defender when he's in either.

They need to work on their help and recover schemes for sure.

Post #239 » by **Rerisen** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 9:49 pm

Speaking on the dangers of jumpers, I'm sick of hearing that Westbrook is the new Wade for that team from the talking heads.

He isn't. Wade was a zone slicer, and went hard all the way to the rim. Westbrook only does fancy posters in transition, but loves to settle for those quick pull ups in the halfcourt, early in the clock. It's silly enough at times on OKC, but kind of ludicrous to be going for that as a first look on Team USA. It's like Deng 20 footers times 1000.

Westbrook plays with such a polarizing style game.

Post #240 » by **suckfish** » Wed Aug 1, 2012 9:51 pm

RoseTheFuture22 wrote:There's probably a simple answer to this but why do lousy teams like Tunsinia and Nigeria get into the Olympics over solid teams like Turkey, Italy, Greece, and Germany?

A certain amount of teams from each continent qualify. The winner of the European (Spain), African (Tunisia), Americas (Argentina), Oceania (Australia), and Asian (China) championships qualifies. Then the runner up of the Americas (Brazil) and European championships (France) also qualify as they are seen as stronger continents. Then the winner of the World Championships (USA) qualify, plus the host nation (GB had to do more to prove they deserved the spot though).

Then there is an Olympic qualifying tournament where 3 teams qualify (Lithuania, Russia, Nigeria.)

Countries like Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia would all be more competitive than say Tunisia. Nigeria actually earned a spot by beating out Greece and Macedonia in the qualifying tournament however.