JasonStern wrote:while I could definitely see a few teams close the gap similar to how Spain did 8 years back, I just can't see America losing in the immediate future without some sort of political turmoil - i.e. the US doesn't field an olympic team out of protest or another USSR-style superpower emerges.YogurtProducer wrote:The thing is you only need a good starting 5 in an Olympic gold game.. So USA can bring all the stars they want, you can only play 5.
that's an ignorant statement. while it is true that only five players can play at a time, players don't play the entire game and thus need to be relieved by backup players. likewise, some lineups match up better against different opposing teams. finally, players occasionally have off games, at which point it would be advantageous to reduce their minute load. thus having 12 all-star caliber players instead of just 5 is a tremendous advantage for any team.
If a team produced 5 NBA all stars and after that had mostly scrubs, you know they would play those 5 all stars the max amount of minutes possible.