RealGM

This team was insane on paper. They had the following STUDS:

- Tim Duncan in his prime (won back-to-back MVPs in 2002 and 2003)
- Allen Iverson in his prime (won MVP in 2001)
- Shawn Marion in his prime
- Stephon Marbury in his prime

They also had young Amare Stoudamire, prime Lamar Odom, young Carlos Boozer, prime Richard Jefferson

We also can't forget that they had young LeBron, Wade, and Carmelo.

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

My two cents:

-Lack of shooting
-Euro game was ahead of it's time with spacing and ball movement
-Too many young guys
-Vets were stars but no leadership
-Brown's system wasn't a good fit for olympic style

A bunch of young kids and me first vets who had no idea how to play together against teams that had played together for years.

I'm not going to give them any excuses. We had a bunch of cocky ass me first ball handlers who were used to doing it on their own and although Iverson tried to play team ball Larry Brown's dumb refusal to play the young guys namely LeBron led to our downfall.

It got to a point I started rooting for I believe Argentina cause you see how team ball was just killing us and how well it looked vs you go I go now you go ball.

Larry Brown excellent coach horrible philosophy towards young guys though cause that right to passage bull is lame when you see elite talent in a player but don't play them because, well you know "he young"...

This team had no cohesion, a lot of prima donnas and no leadership from top to bottom.

No Shaquille O'neal.. And also Larry Brown, and I do 100% believe Duncan deserves much more blame, they should have won anyway

They lost.

That's what happened.

The roster was poorly constructed and there was a clearcut international agenda to punish USA. If you can rewatch these games, they are some of the worst refereed games of all time, even by international standards where the referring is substantially worse to begin with.

I agree that it was just a poorly constructed team and Larry Brown was a poor choice for coach in such a short tournament. He was a coach that took time to adapt to. Just ill conceived overall.

It needs to be said though that Argentina was really, really good. Arguably the best non-US team ever in the Olympics. They had great talent in their prime and played like well oiled machine. The Lithuania loss was a wake up call that they couldn't cruise through the tourney but they were awake and playing HARD against Argentina and still lost.

Having a bunch of me first ball handler doesn't help.

Correct if I'm wrong, but did these following players withdrew from because of the security issues?
Vince Carter
Kevin Garnett
McGrady
Ray Allen

Would help a lot with these guys around, also throw out a LeBron James & Carmelo Anthony for some athleticism would help a lot too.

Capn'O wrote:I agree that it was just a poorly constructed team and Larry Brown was a poor choice for coach in such a short tournament. He was a coach that took time to adapt to. Just ill conceived overall.

It needs to be said though that Argentina was really, really good. Arguably the best non-US team ever in the Olympics. They had great talent in their prime and played like well oiled machine. The Lithuania loss was a wake up call that they couldn't cruise through the tourney but they were awake and playing HARD against Argentina and still lost.

Man I love me some Manu Ginobili!

I used to argue with my brother and friends during that time period that he was a better player than D Wade due to his IQ (just my preference and not that Wade was dumb it's just Manu saw the game differently). They didn't agree until Manu was about to retire.

Edit: early mid 2000s
Kobe T Mac
Manu
Wade

Karate Diop wrote:The roster was poorly constructed and there was a clearcut international agenda to punish USA. If you can rewatch these games, they are some of the worst refereed games of all time, even by international standards where the referring is substantially worse to begin with.

The refs were pro USA through the whole tournament.

Capn'O wrote:I agree that it was just a poorly constructed team and Larry Brown was a poor choice for coach in such a short tournament. He was a coach that took time to adapt to. Just ill conceived overall.

It needs to be said though that Argentina was really, really good. Arguably the best non-US team ever in the Olympics. They had great talent in their prime and played like well oiled machine. The Lithuania loss was a wake up call that they couldn't cruise through the tourney but they were awake and playing HARD against Argentina and still lost.

The Spain 2008 and 2012 teams were better.

I think shooting was a big issue. There were big name players, but not a good balance.

Manu Ginobili balled out of his mind during that tournament. And the US was slow to adapt to the international game. They got blown out by Puerto Rico lmao.

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.

Some notes/observations

-Despite a terrible tournament and terrible fitting team, the US still won the bronze, beating a VERY good Spain team (they had Pau, Juan Carlos Navarro, Garbajosa, Calderon, Rudy Fernandez) in the quarter finals and sending them home w/o a medal. Also beat Lithuania in the bronze medal game.

-US just had some bad fits for the international game like Marbury and AI and they lacked shooting in a big way.

-Lebron and Carmelo were still ultra young. Just 19/20.

-Argentina was really, really good with prime Manu, Oberto, Nocioni, Delfino and Scola. Probably their best ever team.

-Tim Duncan was not a fan of FIBA officiating and promptly retired from Team USA/FIBA ball after this game.

-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 game isn't played on paper.

Liam_Gallagher wrote:This team was insane on paper. They had the following STUDS:

- Tim Duncan in his prime (won back-to-back MVPs in 2002 and 2003)
- Allen Iverson in his prime (won MVP in 2001)
- Shawn Marion in his prime
- Stephon Marbury in his prime

They also had young Amare Stoudamire, prime Lamar Odom, young Carlos Boozer, prime Richard Jefferson

We also can't forget that they had young LeBron, Wade, and Carmelo.

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

I think they would have done better if some other stars avoided legal troubles, and took pride in representing their countries, tbh.

Optms wrote: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.

Talk about revisionist history. Kobe didn't fail to commit because "he didn't care since the US always winning was taken for granted"...Kobe didn't commit cause he had other things going on in his life...specifically in Colorado...