Who is to be blamed for USA failure in FIBA world cup?

[mudsak]

it's simple... Team USA would normally look like an All-Star team. How many All-Stars did they have on their roster?

Also... credit due to the international teams stepping up their game and getting better.

gobert was a monster

[MrSparkle]

I really do think the USA could’ve squeezed by with better guard depth. Lillard, Beal, Harden, McCollum and Gordon all dropped out just as summer arrived. There go all your best shooting threats. Mitchell played well but he relies on his inside scoring, and Gobert was the worst possible wall he could face. Same with Kemba, who does a lot of damage in iso. Who was the next best spot up shooter after Joe Harris? JOE HARRIS.

Smart and White are good role-players but a far-cry from the shooting and playmaking the guys above provide.

Secondly, Barnes is a bum. Just one All-NBA PF would’ve dramatically helped, esp. with Tatum getting injured (who was a soft but more adequate combo PF option). I actually think it was a mistake ditching Thad Young for Barnes.

So the 90% of your best, top-20 American players dropping out (or nursing injuries) was a big hit. But beyond that, it was a classic recipe of too many mediocre chefs in the kitchen. I like Kemba and Mitchell, but these guys aren’t Lebron/Curry cream above of the rest of the crop. They have mediocre career records; they don’t demand respect. You could tell there was a funky pecking order — i.e. none.

In many ways a G League squad with chemistry and matching talent would’ve been better. That JVG scrimmage was no fluke. This was a badly assembled team, despite the talent. Mitchell is really young and still developing; he can’t lead a national team of fellow 3rd tier and fringe stars. Kemba is not a Chris Paul or Kyrie type of pg who creates easy baskets for teammates.

It really was 2002 all over again, but worse. No shortage of star talent there, but they lacked a floor general (and a backup) who could shoot 3Ps and pass/make 4 guys happy. It was Dre Miller who could pass but not shoot, and Baron who never met a shot he didn’t take (despite his flashy assist abilities). Oh and Jay Williams who revealed early he’ll bust.

[bb22]

France and Australia were the biggest threats to this team. Just bad luck that they had to meet in the QFs. France was the better team nonetheless.
This team was just not good enough. Not enough shooting to compete in FIBA, which made them fairly easy to guard if you have an anchor like Gobert camping in the paint.
I think the fact that they lost incentivizes stars to play next year (in the Olympics) more than usual. I can't imagine what kind of roster they would throw out there for the Olympics if they'd had won with this crew.
Makes for a better storyline in Tokyo too, as the US won't be perceived as the invincible squad. I assume they put together a star-studded line-up and dominate their way to the gold.

[Mirotic12]

Superstars do not refuse to represent their country. They do so with much enthusiasm and honor at the Olympics.

The issue is that basketball is trying to mimic soccer and force feed a FIBA world cup, but people wont be compelled to care just because you've created something.

What are you saying here? The FIBA World Cup has existed for decades. The first one was held in 1950. It's not some random new competition FIBA just rolled out.

[OzThunder]

People say they didn't have enough talent, but compare them to Australia for example:

Delly (NBA bench) / Sobey (NBL)
Mills (Good NBA bench) / Goulding (Fringe NBA chance) / Gliddon (NBL)
Ingles (Decent NBA starter) / Creek (Fringe NBA chance)
Landale (Fringe NBA chance) / Kay (NBL) / Barlow (NBL role player)
Baynes (Good NBA bench) / Bogut (NBA bench)

Compare that to a team of NBA allstars and starters....... and i think you have to start to realise it comes down to coaching, style, culture and fit.

You could do the same with France, Czech Republuc, Turkey, Argentina etc etc

[JB2]

People say they didn't have enough talent, but compare them to Australia for example:

Delly (NBA bench) / Sobey (NBL)
Mills (Good NBA bench) / Goulding (Fringe NBA chance) / Gliddon (NBL)
Ingles (Decent NBA starter) / Creek (Fringe NBA chance)
Landale (Fringe NBA chance) / Kay (NBL) / Barlow (NBL role player)
Baynes (Good NBA bench) / Bogut (NBA bench)

Compare that to a team of NBA allstars and starters....... and i think you have to start to realise it comes down to coaching, style, culture and fit.

You could do the same with France, Czech Republuc, Turkey, Argentina etc etc

This.

Did we have LeBron, AD, KD, Kawhi, Harden, PG, Curry, Dame, etc? No. Should we need them to be a team with 4 NBA players? NO.

Poor job coaching and terrible job putting the team together.

[dakomish23]

Rudy Gobert
Evan Fournier
Frank Ntilikina



Also, we can blame AAU basketball for the embarrassing development of American centers, the US has no all-star level centers. Every top level center today plays for another national team. Rudy Gobert looked like David Robinson playing against middle schoolers out there.

KAT? Davis?

[jason bourne]

No one is to blame. It was just to qualify a team for the Olympics next year. If they won or gone further and gotten a medal, then that's gravy. Did people really care about winning a FIBA cup and gold medal?

[50CalClips]

I don't know what FIBA is.

[Hroz]

The different rules didn't help

[DeRoma]

If he didn't hog the ball as much Tatum and Brown would be better players and would likely get the W for France.

[durden_tyler]

Myles Turner, Brook Lopez and Kemba Walker.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Rudy Gobert
Evan Fournier
Frank Ntilikina



Also, we can blame AAU basketball for the embarrassing development of American centers, the US has no all-star level centers. Every top level center today plays for another national team. Rudy Gobert looked like David Robinson playing against middle schoolers out there.

KAT? Davis?

KAT plays for Dominican Republic, and Davis doesn't want to play center.

Also, both of those guys are a lot smaller than the true 7 footers like Embiid, Jokic, Gobert etc :






KAT and Davis to me are more PF than they are centers.

[Mirotic12]

People say they didn't have enough talent, but compare them to Australia for example:

Delly (NBA bench) / Sobey (NBL)
Mills (Good NBA bench) / Goulding (Fringe NBA chance) / Gliddon (NBL)
Ingles (Decent NBA starter) / Creek (Fringe NBA chance)
Landale (Fringe NBA chance) / Kay (NBL) / Barlow (NBL role player)
Baynes (Good NBA bench) / Bogut (NBA bench)

Compare that to a team of NBA allstars and starters....... and i think you have to start to realise it comes down to coaching, style, culture and fit.

You could do the same with France, Czech Republuc, Turkey, Argentina etc etc

This USA versus this Argentina -->

USA is more athletic, but not enough so to really make a huge difference, just a slight bit tad more athletic. Argentina on the other hand, is a more skilled team, has much better shooters, they are much better at pick and roll, and they have far superior guard play. Their guard play is so much better than USA's.

Team USA has been winning FIBA tournaments lately with an athleticism advantage against other teams, and outside shooting, being able to rain down a bunch of 3s. This USA team is maybe only above average level in athleticism for this tournament (maybe just average compared to decent teams). Honestly, France definitely looked more athletic than USA in that game. In some of the games, the USA team actually was regularly losing on certain plays to players on the other teams in terms of athleticism. They couldn't run an extremely old Brazilian team off the court, and got only 89 points against them - recent USA teams would have probably scored over 120-130 on them.

This USA team is a joke in terms of shooting. Not one of the other just even half way decent teams in the tournament is not a significantly better shooting team. We had USA sports media killing Greece all tournament for "having no shooters to help Giannis". Over and over, US media said that. Greece as a team is >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> at shooting than this USA team is. Minus Giannis and Thanasis, as players that can't shoot, it would be laughable to even compare the two teams in that regard. And yet, shooting was a problem for Greece, and US media framed it as "they have no one on the team that can shoot". It's a disconnect from reality or something, but that Greek team, which is bad at shooting for European standards, and they kept calling them out for it, is miles better at shooting than this USA team is. So how could USA sports media not understand this result was coming for USA?

Recent USA teams also had centers that could compete at the least, or often win their match ups. Not against Pau or some match up like that. But they at least could compete, and maybe not win against let's say Gobert, but they wouldn't let him control the game like that. This USA team has been getting abused by the other team's centers the whole tournament pretty much.

Finally, recent USA teams had players like Durant, Curry, Harden, Kyrie, etc. - players that could take over and close out games, if needed. I really don't see a single player on this USA roster that is good enough to lead a team to even a bronze medal against good international competition. There is not a single player on this USA roster that is a legit lead option, go to guy, or closer.

So no shooting ability, no athleticism advantage, even against just OK teams, a weak center position, and no player good enough to be a leader at this level of FIBA - that is what this USA team has. They may have 12 NBA starters, but it's clearly not enough for tournaments like this. If you took this same USA team and put them against some of those great international teams of past years, this USA team would lose a lot worse than they did to France.

[Nate505]

it is. the world would still play basketball if usa stopped, so usa not caring is irrelevant. the reality you try to portay is just in your head.
european teams still focus on euro cup and world cup equaly.
what im trying to say is... you send "a team" players to olympics which are a lot easier to win and then claim "this is the premium tournament." it isnt.

It is relevant though. The US is far and away the best basketball country in the world, both currently and historically. The tournament they value does matter for the prestige of it. If Germany, Brazil, Argentina, and France stopped sending their best players to the World Cup, the prestige of that tournament would go down as well.

no its not. the world would keep playing basketball and they woudl still compete and people would still watch. dont think if the us doesnt care about a thing that the rest of the world is the same.
like this WC for example. US obviously doesnt care as you can see by their roster. does it seem like the rest of the world doesnt care as well? no, they want to win no matter who stands oppose to them.

i presume you were talking about football WC? right... wc, not olympics.

Sure the world would keep playing it. And without the most relevant country in terms of basketball the prestige of the tournament means less.

In soccer the WC is the premier international tournament. It means something. It would mean a lot less if European teams focused on the Euro Cup and sent B teams to the World Cup.

[OzThunder]

Again, lack of quality big men on the team. Lopez is trash and Turner is too up and down. I mean Turner had 2 pts and 1 rb in 10mins and Lopez/Plumlee combined for 0 pts and 0 rebs in 6mins of play. That means over half the game was played with 6'7 or 6'8 Brown and Barnes at center vs the Stifle Tower who played 34 mins with 21pts and 16rbs.

It's 100% no big men. Prove me wrong.

Why can Australia get away with a big rotation of Baynes/ Bogut/ Landale? Is that not comparable to Turner/ Lopez/ Plumlee?

System and coaching. I don't think anyone before this tournament would've entertained that Baynes and Bogut were in the same stratosphere as Turner and Lopez. Now they're trash low quality big men? Turner lead the lead in blocks... and now he's not good enough to be on the court with Gobert? Something isn't clicking for you guys.

[Dominator83]

It's Kyries fault I ordered a Heineken and was served a Budweiser

[Nate505]

it is. olympics arent. keep telling yourself that. olympics are an all sports event, basketball is just a tiny bit of it. so the tournament is also tiny... easier to win.

It isn't. The US cares about the Olympics more, so therefore it is the more important event. That's just the reality behind the situation.

If all the European teams stopped sending their best players to the World Cup and focused more on the Euro Cup, the World Cup would lose a ton of prestige. The US in basketball is equivalent to basically all of Europe in soccer.

Wow, you're modest

It’s true though. Counting the Olympics and the FIBA WC the US has won 20 out of 37 tournaments.

[reload141]

It’s raining in Melbourne, Australia atm.

It’s Kyries fault.

What a fault he is. The faultiest fault alive.

[Diop]

It's kyries fault he's not coming off the bench for Australia