What Happened to the 2004 USA Olympic Team?

[Joao Saraiva]

I remember LeBron complaining about every call and non-call while the FIBA refs just looked back at him and smirked. Who does this kid think he is?

Iverson also spent half his time on the court trying to dribble through zones.

Yeah yeah. LeBron played 10 minutes per game and he was not even an NBA star yet. Dude was 18 at the time por something.

[CoachD]

It's pretty much been stated ... but ...

A) There were TOO many stars, and Larry tried to give equal minutes. They didn't allow anyone to play heavy min and get going. Iverson played 27 mpg and only managed 11 FGA per game.
Compare that to his regular season when he played 43 mpg and averaged 24 FA.

Guys had so little time, when they got the ball they just wanted to "get theirs" and force coach to leave them on the floor.

Lebron, Melo, Amare were all young ... they should have either been left off the team, or played. They all played a small amount of minutes.

B) That team lacked outside shooting. the only ones who took more than 3 threes per game were Iverson (36%) and Marbury (32%)

C) The team had no playmaking. Marbury and AI were always more like SGs. Marbury led that 2004 team in assists with 3.4 per game.

[bisme37]

If anyone is interested and has Olympic Channel, they are marathoning a bunch of Men's Gold Medal Basketball games today. Doesn't look like the 2004 game is included but the last few are airing as well as 1992 and 1996 later tonight.

[Mirotic12]

You have to look at the big picture for the root cause. Michael Jordan's success exploiting the illegal defense rules that had traditionally been leveraged for post bigs changed the meta for NBA offenses.

The early 2000s was awash with slow paced, iso plays for driving perimeter players. Iverson, Stackhouse (29.8PPG in 01!!), McGrady, Kobe, Marbury etc. Pace was down, ball movement at a minimum and shooting skills devalued. The game was a gimmick that fell apart when faced with normal basketball rules and concepts in international competition.

The NBA rule changes from 2005 that allowed zones and all but removed illegal defense was what brought the NBA game back by incentivising shooting and ball movement to create real spacing and now the game is much closer to the real thing. Clean up the absurd reffing and you'd have a way more talented version of FIBA ball which would **** rock.

The NBA doesn't allow zone defense. It's an obviously fake myth that it allows zone defense. If you have the defensive 3 seconds rule, then there is no zone defense allowed.

What the NBA has is a so-called "psuedo-zone" defense, in which an actual real zone defense, with defenders being allowed to crowd the pain area, being banned.

No basketball competition in the world (except the NBA), considers that to be an actual zone defense. Just because the in-game NBA announcers call it a zone defense, does not mean that it actually is a zone defense. It's just another one of the NBA's marketing gimmicks.

You really should stick to one or two threads at a time to showcase your lack of basketball knowledge. You're going to burn yourself out. Also Spanoulis is a minor league basketball player who was the worst player I've ever seen in the big league.

This guy thinks that a league that has a defensive 3 seconds rule, is playing with a real true zone defense.......

[dhsilv2]

-I'd add that if it was any other NBA superstar other than Duncan, he would've gotten a lot of flak for this. Imagine Lebron retiring after a FIBA tournament because he didn't like the officiating. He would've never heard the end of that. Duncan somehow "retired" from FIBA competition very quietly.

The spurs were also just at the start of minute management with Duncan in 2004. It was just not a good idea for a star like him to play and Duncan was mature enough to understand that. Also...why deal with stupid refs over a glorified pickup game?

Ginobili and Parker continued playing internationally for many more years, all while being load managed by the Spurs. I believe Ginobili even played in 2016 when he was 38.

Yeah, as much as I love Manu, I hated that he kept playing in those games. One of the things that to me puts him lower on my all time lists. Parker never seemingly needed minute management so I never really cared...he also was never all that good despite people like Chuck claiming him to be more than he was.

[AussieBuck]

The NBA doesn't allow zone defense. It's an obviously fake myth that it allows zone defense. If you have the defensive 3 seconds rule, then there is no zone defense allowed.

What the NBA has is a so-called "psuedo-zone" defense, in which an actual real zone defense, with defenders being allowed to crowd the pain area, being banned.

No basketball competition in the world (except the NBA), considers that to be an actual zone defense. Just because the in-game NBA announcers call it a zone defense, does not mean that it actually is a zone defense. It's just another one of the NBA's marketing gimmicks.

You really should stick to one or two threads at a time to showcase your lack of basketball knowledge. You're going to burn yourself out. Also Spanoulis is a minor league basketball player who was the worst player I've ever seen in the big league.

This guy thinks that a league that has a defensive 3 seconds rule, is playing with a real true zone defense.......

197 IQ and still can't comprehend basic English.

Back to school for you minor league fan.

[Dupp]

Leaders / chemistry.


Duncan said in an interview with RJ once when they were on the bus of that team they looked at each other and said this team isn’t winning anything. Kinda speaks volumes.

[JJ_PR]

Beating Team USA in 2004 is one of the crowning achievements in the history of Team Puerto Rico basketball. I was 11 @ the time this happened & there was a lot of buzz in Puerto Rico about the accomplishment. We had NBA player Carlos Arroyo leading the way. I don't think we'll have a team as good as '04 ever again.

[art_tatum]

AI and starbury we're not winners. Duncan is not a vocal leader. He should've demanded the ball.

Also let's admit it, it's 100% lebrons fault

[Ritzo]

Bunch of kids and chuckers. They're not playing for their country, they're playing for themselves.

[Creativetran]

LARRY BROWN!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thats all folks end tread

[j-ragg]

I remember an exhibition game against Germany. I thought USA would win by 50. Ended up winning on a 35 foot buzzer beater by Iverson, and everyone celebrated. I remember thinking “this is the first time we don’t look easily better than the competition”. And it showed.