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

[Archx]

Coaching staff made a lot of bad decisions. This team still had enough talent to get into the finals but something just wasn't clicking. Having only 1 true playmaker on the team was also risky as hell.

Also Americans not being used to FIBA style of rules or defense, made life harder for them. But like i said, their tactics and poor sub patterns are mostly the reason why they lost. Barnes playing hero ball and messing up everything ( just like in Dallas ), having small guys guarding Gobert also didn't make any sense. Kemba playing bad and no real replacement for him, etc.

I've only seen the box score, didn't watch the game but how was Barnes playing hero ball when he only had three shot attempts?

Instead of passing out, he went 1v1 with Gobert under the rim (in the cruical moment) and got tangled up and traveled.

[nikster]

to be fair the coaches of other international teams have the benefit of having consistent roster and playing together for years.

This is just simply untrue. Every single other national team has regular turnover of players, and most of them change coaches and system all the time. USA sports media keeps making that claim - it is false and untrue.

Composted this to another reply above regarding France: their core 4 players have played for France for 5 plus years, and have 3 other rotations players with experience with the team who played in EuroBasket 2017.

Their head coach has been there for 10 years

[nikster]

For a country that has so many star basketball players to say they needed a superstar(-s) to win against other countries with 1 star, tops, is really pathetic.

Coaching let the team down. Plain and simple.

to be fair the coaches of other international teams have the benefit of having consistent roster and playing together for years.

This is not correct. Most teams are different for every tournament. Look at Eurobasket 2017 France and this one. A lot of different players. Players don't see each other, many play in different leagues, they get together like team usa. Same story for most teams. Serbia also has many new players compared to Eurobasket. Same with Spain. Coaches are the same though.

I’ll post this again: France has a head coach that’s been there 10 years, 4 best players that have been 5 + years, and 3 rotation players from EuroBasket.

[Mazter]

The Americans still had the most talent of any team, but we just lack continuity and cohesion as a team. In order to overcome that gap and be able to reliably win the tournament (>99.9% win probability is what's expected) you have to have a massive talent gap and this time it wasn't that big. If this team stayed together for a full off season, trained together and were all within one organization, they would blow out the competition next year. It wouldn't be close.

So who's fault is it?

IT'S USA BASKETBALL'S FAULT.

The organizing body is the one who should be taking top level responsibility. If the players aren't coming, it's their job to figure out a solution, and I don't see any sign that that is happening.

The good thing is that perhaps enough people will be pissed that we'll have a better turnout for 2020 and we can throw the hammer down on the world again. It's better for everyone, though, for the competition to continue to improve and that's what is happening.

Well, the NBA mostly has a mind of it own, and the players "belong" to them, so not much they can do about that. But one thing they could do is hire a dedicated coaching staff. I dont think coaching an NBA team and team USA is a good combination.

[Mirotic12]

to be fair the coaches of other international teams have the benefit of having consistent roster and playing together for years.

This is not correct. Most teams are different for every tournament. Look at Eurobasket 2017 France and this one. A lot of different players. Players don't see each other, many play in different leagues, they get together like team usa. Same story for most teams. Serbia also has many new players compared to Eurobasket. Same with Spain. Coaches are the same though.

I’ll post this again: France has a head coach that’s been there 10 years, 4 best players that have been 5 + years, and 3 rotation players from EuroBasket.

Most of these international teams are changing rosters, head coaches, and systems every single tournament. The fact that US sports media keeps claiming every other team "has been together for years" is absolutely 100% factually untrue, false, and wrong.

It's a totally made up BS talking point, and they really need to stop it.

Actually, USA with their federation management, their system, their head coaching position, and rosters at big tournaments, has one of the best and most consistent setups of any national team in the world.

The only national teams with a more consistent setup from year to year are Spain, Argentina, and Brazil, while France is arguable. USA is the 4th-5th best in the whole world for having consistency and everything being setup and in place.

I'll give Greece as an example, they are changing coaches, changing systems, and turning over several of the players on their roster at pretty much every single tournament.....they are way, way more in a state of fluctuation than Team USA is.

[Paddy Brosso]

In July, on the original list of possible players for the final roster there were some superstars (Harden, Anthony Davis, Lillard...), among other very good players. If Popovich could have had say those 3 players plus Drummond and Kevin Love, instead of say Harris, White, Smart, Brown and Plumlee, then it would have been totally different. Imagine a team with Lillard, Walker, Harden, Mitchell, Middleton, Tatum, Barnes, Davis, Love, Drummond, Lopez and Turner. They would win the gold medal for sure.

[bearadonisdna]

Roster construction, the roster and rotation seemed Frankenstein-ish when it’s supposed to look like more of dream team.

Trae freakin young was on the select team, We know Derrick white on the team is nepotism.

[Darth Celtic]

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.

[basketballRob]

Evan "the assassin " Fournier!

Sent from my SM-G965U using RealGM mobile app

[Bobbymcgee]

The Celtics.

[codydaze]

Coaching staff made a lot of bad decisions. This team still had enough talent to get into the finals but something just wasn't clicking. Having only 1 true playmaker on the team was also risky as hell.

Also Americans not being used to FIBA style of rules or defense, made life harder for them. But like i said, their tactics and poor sub patterns are mostly the reason why they lost. Barnes playing hero ball and messing up everything ( just like in Dallas ), having small guys guarding Gobert also didn't make any sense. Kemba playing bad and no real replacement for him, etc.

I've only seen the box score, didn't watch the game but how was Barnes playing hero ball when he only had three shot attempts?

Instead of passing out, he went 1v1 with Gobert under the rim (in the cruical moment) and got tangled up and traveled.

So literally only one play? That was his only turnover in the game and it happened with three minutes left in the game. Maybe it was a bad play, but not something I'd call hero ball or something that messed up everything.

[Pennebaker]

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 but nobody cares about a FIBA world cup and you cant force anyone to care just because you've created it.

[Pennebaker]

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.

[iggymcfrack]

Voted for every option except iso ball

[nikster]

This is not correct. Most teams are different for every tournament. Look at Eurobasket 2017 France and this one. A lot of different players. Players don't see each other, many play in different leagues, they get together like team usa. Same story for most teams. Serbia also has many new players compared to Eurobasket. Same with Spain. Coaches are the same though.

I’ll post this again: France has a head coach that’s been there 10 years, 4 best players that have been 5 + years, and 3 rotation players from EuroBasket.

Most of these international teams are changing rosters, head coaches, and systems every single tournament. The fact that US sports media keeps claiming every other team "has been together for years" is absolutely 100% factually untrue, false, and wrong.

It's a totally made up BS talking point, and they really need to stop it.

Actually, USA with their federation management, their system, their head coaching position, and rosters at big tournaments, has one of the best and most consistent setups of any national team in the world.

The only national teams with a more consistent setup from year to year are Spain, Argentina, and Brazil, while France is arguable. USA is the 4th-5th best in the whole world for having consistency and everything being setup and in place.

I'll give Greece as an example, they are changing coaches, changing systems, and turning over several of the players on their roster at pretty much every single tournament.....they are way, way more in a state of fluctuation than Team USA is.

I would Serbia to that list. Coach’s been there since 2013. Bjelica and Radiljica since 2009, Marjonivc, siminovic, Jovic, bircevic, and bogdanovic all been at least 5 years. And Jolie has played with the team before.

So Spain, France, Serbia, Argentina and Brazil. That’s most of the top competition

[Archx]

I've only seen the box score, didn't watch the game but how was Barnes playing hero ball when he only had three shot attempts?

Instead of passing out, he went 1v1 with Gobert under the rim (in the cruical moment) and got tangled up and traveled.

So literally only one play? That was his only turnover in the game and it happened with three minutes left in the game. Maybe it was a bad play, but not something I'd call hero ball or something that messed up everything.

Whatever, watch the entire tournament, cba go into details from every game.

[pootbrah]

Im not sure why people think this was crazy. Look at the roster of France and the US. Yes, the US has more talent, but not by that large of an amount, especially when you restrict it to a top 7 or 8. France has multiple NBA level players, US only has 1 all-star and a bunch of players not significantly better than their french counterparts (guys like Jaylen brown and Barnes arent much better if at all than Fournier/ de colo) and France had the best player, by far, imo.

In a sudden death tournament setting, a single poor shooting night can kill you. And the US wasnt coming with a squad that outclassed the rest of the tourny.

Pretty much this.

[ShadyMoney]

Just not realistic to expect the top American players to play in a tournament like this 11 months before the olympics with a full nba season in between.

The U23 (or U25 or whatever) for the WC is an interesting angle. Eliminates the need to ask guys to commit two straight summers.

The opposite is what is going to happen. The Olympics is going to become the under 23 tournament, and the World Cup is going to be the only world tournament for senior men. The NBA and FIBA have been planning that for a long time, and even people associated to FIBA have said it is happening soon.

The latest talk is that the 2028 Olympics basketball will be an under-23 only tournament.

To the US players though it isn't. The Olympics is the major tournament they care about, as and as they are the best players in the world, it makes that tournament the most prestigious.

FIBA is going to make the Olympics an under-23 tournament. This has been known for several years now. So the USA players will have to get with the rest of the world, whether they like it or not.

Imagine that rule happened this year and now we have Zion.

[codydaze]

Instead of passing out, he went 1v1 with Gobert under the rim (in the cruical moment) and got tangled up and traveled.

So literally only one play? That was his only turnover in the game and it happened with three minutes left in the game. Maybe it was a bad play, but not something I'd call hero ball or something that messed up everything.

Whatever, watch the entire tournament, cba go into details from every game.

Not counting Tatum since he only played in two games, Barnes was 3rd in PPG, 4th in Player Efficiency, 3rd in +/-, 1st in SPG, T-4th in RPG, had the third most FT attempts with the highest % of the top 3.

[Lalouie]

the reputation of the american player/nba will not be sullied by a win or loss in fiba. no one cares, except apparently the OP. players around the world know where the money is, where the highest competition is, and where the bright lights are.

the usa doesn't have to prove anything, nor would it by winning fiba.

the only news that is news is if we LOSE. in other words even if we win in fiba it makes a 2 line blurb on the sports back page. it is taken for granted. that's like a zillionaire misplacing a cheap plastic bauble that he would never notice until his maid tells him it's missing during spring cleaning.