What Happened to the 2004 USA Olympic Team?

[Capn'O]

Two things that don't get mentioned often here:

1. Lack of talent
2. Lack of motivation

We all knew at the time that was the USA's B team. No Shaq, no Kobe, no Jason Kidd, no KG. Those guys didn't commit because they didn't care since the US always winning was taken for granted. The players on the 2004 deserve blame too. They didn't care. They were all half assing it.

They weren't by the Argentina game but it was too late.

[Capn'O]

In the semis against Argentina, Tim Duncan fouled out in 20 minutes (I'm not sure if he actually committed any, but he was called for 5). LeBron played 3 minutes, Amar'e played 2, and Carmelo didn't play. Wade was 1-8 in 19 minutes.

To me, a team relying Iverson, Marbury, Odom, Marion, Boozer, and Richard Jefferson screams bronze medal all the way.

Hi Tim.

[ellobo]

In the semis against Argentina, Tim Duncan fouled out in 20 minutes (I'm not sure if he actually committed any, but he was called for 5). LeBron played 3 minutes, Amar'e played 2, and Carmelo didn't play. Wade was 1-8 in 19 minutes.

To me, a team relying Iverson, Marbury, Odom, Marion, Boozer, and Richard Jefferson screams bronze medal all the way.

Hi Tim.

Damn, time to come clean. I'd knew someone would figure it out some time.

This is really Tim Duncan's burner account

Seriously, I still remember the incredulity on Duncan's face at some of those calls, and I remember having the same reaction watching on TV.

[Capn'O]

In the semis against Argentina, Tim Duncan fouled out in 20 minutes (I'm not sure if he actually committed any, but he was called for 5). LeBron played 3 minutes, Amar'e played 2, and Carmelo didn't play. Wade was 1-8 in 19 minutes.

To me, a team relying Iverson, Marbury, Odom, Marion, Boozer, and Richard Jefferson screams bronze medal all the way.

Hi Tim.

Damn, time to come clean. I'd knew someone would figure it out some time.

This is really Tim Duncan's burner account

Seriously, I still remember the incredulity on Duncan's face at some of those calls, and I remember having the same reaction watching on TV.

I have a vague memory of that too but Tim had that face for like every foul ever called on him.

[sikma42]

Larry Brown is an overrated coach.

Team didn’t fit. Only chance they would have had was to play some of the younger guys but Brown refused


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[formula 400]

definitely on Duncan. he was never a great leader, he was lucky to have pop

[AussieBuck]

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.

[ReddoverKobe]

Want to guess who was jacking up shots shooting 37%?

[ReddoverKobe]

definitely on Duncan. he was never a great leader, he was lucky to have pop

Almost anyone besides AI and Marbury would have been better

[cupcakesnake]

Another funny thing about the aftermath of 2004 was that team USA basically made it mandatory to have a shooting specialist on the roster. Kyle Korver, JJ Reddick, Ryan Anderson, Joe Harris, Michael Redd, Chandler Parsons, Klay Thompson... they all got some good run based on 2004!

[NZB2323]

Iverson may have been 3 years away from winning MVP but he was also 3 year away from getting traded.

Iverson took more shots than anyone, only shot 37.8%, and only had 2.5 assists per game.

Marbury took the 2nd most shots, shot 42.3%, and only had 3.4 assists per game.

Richard Jefferson was the first guard off the bench, took the 5th most shots, shot 32.1%, and only had 1 assist per game.

Wade was the next guard off the bench, took the 6th most shots, shot 38.2%, and only had 2.4 assists per game.

Not only that, but the backcourt was getting lit up on defense by Ginobili and Arroyo.

The guards who made the all-NBA teams in 2004 were Kidd, Kobe, Tmac, Cassell, Baron Davis, and Michael Redd. None of them were on the Olympic team. Instead we had guard who couldn’t pass, couldn’t defend, and couldn’t score efficiently.

In 2008 we had Kobe, CP3, Deron Williams, Michael Redd, Jason Kidd, and Wade was much better.

[Bankai]

Imo, it was selfish ball, I remember seeing many ISO's while the other team fundamentally moved the ball and got lots of FT's.

[seren]

2002 was worse.

[BobbyPortisEyes]

Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury went on to build a successful accounting firm in the Tri-state area. Tim Duncan and Shawn Marion made their way to Hawaii where they became prolific seashell vendors. Collecting seashells for commercial use is of course illegal in Hawaii, but boys will be boys and rascals will always be rascals.

Every four years, in true Olympic fashion, the gang gets together for a gleeful game of strip poker. In reminiscing about their past, they surmised that maybe the real gold medal wasn't some shiny thing to put around your neck, but rather the friends you made along the way.

[Chronz]

In the semis against Argentina, Tim Duncan fouled out in 20 minutes (I'm not sure if he actually committed any, but he was called for 5). LeBron played 3 minutes, Amar'e played 2, and Carmelo didn't play. Wade was 1-8 in 19 minutes.

To me, a team relying Iverson, Marbury, Odom, Marion, Boozer, and Richard Jefferson screams bronze medal all the way.

Hi Tim.

Damn, time to come clean. I'd knew someone would figure it out some time.

This is really Tim Duncan's burner account

Seriously, I still remember the incredulity on Duncan's face at some of those calls, and I remember having the same reaction watching on TV.

Totally. I was never a big Duncan fan and completely anti-Iverson, they got screwed by the refs. They still would've lost, but Duncan should get no blame here.

[Sedale Threatt]

Overall, it took the US a long time to get over the attitude that we're the best at basketball and no one else is really a threat to beat us under any circumstances, so all we have to do is show up and we'll still win even if we don't play hard, smart, or cohesively.

I actually think we attacked the problem pretty quickly. We had back-to-back catastrophes in 02 and 04 and pretty immediately instituted a more structured program. Even though it didn't bear immediate fruits in 06, it had nothing to do with cohesion or effort or still thinking we could just roll out the ball and win by 20; Greece just played the game of its collective lives and beat us straight up, which is going to happen in single-elimination competition. (We could have easily lost to Spain or France in multiple tournaments since then as well.)

I think our record since the 04 debacle is something like 71-4 with six titles in seven major tournaments, and it would be even better if we didn't have the maddening tradition of treating the Olympics as our only main objective. So it's hard to criticize the response.

Well, waiting until you have "back-to-back catastrophes" two years apart doesn't seem like a very fast response. It seems more like we didn't learn our lesson the first time and had to get spanked again before reality set in.

And you can excuse 2006, but that was another disappointment, and hard to look at as righting the ship. I don't recall the game against Greece specifically, but looking at the box score it's hard to imagine that a US team that is organized and playing hard defensively would give up 63.5% field goals. That's not just the opponent getting hot. That's the opponent consistently getting high quality shots due to some combination of bad strategy, bad execution, bad effort, or the opponent having a lot more talent than you (which was not the case). Greece even missed 10 free throws, although the US shot even worse from the line.

First one you can just chalk up to a bad tournament. Second was proof of systemic failure, at which point USA Basketball responded. Perhaps if 02 had been the Olympics it would have prompted a super immediate reaction. But it barely registered given that it was the Worlds and I don't think that was an irrational chain of events that prompted the overhaul. Two tournaments in two years isn't exactly being asleep at the wheel.

And yes, of course 06 was a disappointment. Massively so, in fact, and easily our biggest since we revamped. Talent was off the charts, everybody was all in, etc etc. We should have won that tournament and would have 98 out of 100 times. Because I do remember that game, very vividly because of how agonizing it was to watch, and Greece will not play like that at that stage in a major tournament against an opponent of that caliber in another 100 years.

Regardless, the details of the game don't really matter. Unless you think never, ever losing under any circumstance is a realistic goal, perfection is simply impossible even with the massive edge in talent we will have in almost all of these games.

The 04 Olympics sucked because of all the circumstances leading up to it. It was embarrassing. But I'm 100 pct satisfied that we gave it our best effort in 06 and just got beat. Not best performance -- that would have precluded getting totally dismantled by pick-and-rolls -- but, for the most part, best effort. At the very least we got full by-in from the players, and when that happens we're almost unbeatable. As our ridiculous record since we started using pros will attest.

[Phreak50]

This IMO Duncan deserves more blame for this. If they won bronze with Kobe we wouldn't let him see the light of day.

Did you watch the games?

From memory, Duncan couldn't get involved because Marbury and Iverson hogged the hell out of the ball.

[hippesthippo]

This IMO Duncan deserves more blame for this. If they won bronze with Kobe we wouldn't let him see the light of day.

Did you watch the games?

From memory, Duncan couldn't get involved because Marbury and Iverson hogged the hell out of the ball.

Every time the opponent played man defense, they automatically dumped it into Duncan and played inside out. The problem was that every opponent immediately switched to zone.

[Yeggo Poleggo]

The disrespect to Manu Ginobli is absolutely unheard of. Manu is forever underrated, and Duncan overrated.

[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.