falcolombardi wrote:lets put it in nba terms
lets say usa is the 2017 warriors, top fiba teams are 8th seeds
usa has played roughly 3 elimination games (i am gonna count 2004 3rd place Match ) for 8 Olympics . they have won 23/24 of those
this is the equivalent of the 2017 warriors going 16-1 then starting 7-0 the next year and very likely to keep winning until 16-0 or at least another 16-1 (if there is another upset in the next 3 olympics)
a team that goes 16-1 then 16-0 would be absolute insanity, just because some of those games are close doesnt make it any less incredible so is very clear that team would be incredibly dominant
saying that a team that is 7-8 in highly volátile single elimination tournaments is not incredibly dominant unless EVERY game is a blowout is not understanding how basketball works or any moderstely competitive tournament for that matter
a much worse but minimally comparable (to the level the 12-70 sixers are comparable to the 73-9 warriors) can win with some luck given enough tries (like it happens in the nba, expansión raptors beat the 72-10 bulls for example)
is said that the best nba teams win big and lose close and by the end of a season they have 60+ wins
usa wins big and wins close and loses basically never (except one time)
their record in elimination games since 92' if it was a nba season is equivalent to a 78-4 win record
tldr: a team that always wins even if sometimes it gets close is incredibly dominant, it doesnt have to be a blow out every time
Amen, couldn't agree more. We're not the only team to have high expectations like this; Brazil's national soccer team, for example, could win the World Cup, but if they didn't do it in stylish, beautiful, dominant fashion like however many other teams they've had in the past there's still a corner of critics who will downplay or dismiss it. But it's such an unrealistic standard.
And with the single elimination thing, just look at the NCAA tournament and how often you see great teams get knocked off. Granted, the competition is a lot heavier, but still. You see huge upsets every year and that's why people love it. So anybody trying to minimize a gold medal because we didn't win every game by 30-plus isn't paying any attention.
We've only ever had two teams that could realistically do that, Dream Teams I and II, and that was 20-30 years ago. The game's changed. We don't get guaranteed, A-plus participation any more, which is why those teams were so incredible, and the competition is much, much better. We've won four gold medals in a row, and in each of those tournaments we had at least one game that could have gone either way.
So this sht isn't easy to do and I'm proud when we do it, not least of which because the people who want to use every little failure as a referendum on the state of American basketball have to STFU for a few years.
