ermocrate wrote:DarkAzcura wrote:ermocrate wrote:LeBron was good as a role player, he needed help from the refs but overall was good.
Lebron was coming off a rookie year in 2004 so that makes sense I suppose. That team had Melo, Wade, and Lebron all coming off rookie years, right? That is tough I feel, even for how good they are.
I just feel a Walker/Smart/Middleton/Millsap/Drummond lineup actually provides a lot of balance and hierarchy. Lowry, Mitchell, Brown, Tatum, and Turner off the bench would be awesome too. Clear roles that all players are used to with not a ton of adjustment, imo. Add PJ Tucker and Thad Young to that team, and you have a really, really good team internationally, imo.
Lopez would be pretty good internationally as well actually.
I was talking about the 2016 Olympics team, LBJ hugely deferred to Durant... Anyway I’m not sure the US basketball has enough talent to compete if they leave their elite athletes out. The main problem is that NBA doesn’t respect a lot of B-ball rules and if it’s hard for LBJ to adjust to a properly officiated game go figure how hard it will be for lower tier players. But at the end I will be very happy if the US squad gets the Bronze medal, maybe they decide it’s time to respect the rules more in the NBA.
NBA role players (or even just low level stars) do not get the benefit of the whistle like superstars do. I'm not too worried about that adjustment, as I don't think there will be much of one in that regard.
I still feel the biggest adjustment the stars typically have to make is adjusting their actual role. I think if the roster is like this:
Walker
Smart
Middleton
Millsap
Drummond
You have your 3 scorers in Walker, Middleton, and Millsap with clearly defined hierarchy while Smart and Drummond can go do the dirty work which they are best at. It's not like (a small example) when we would ask Wade to be like Smart, which he isn't used to, and the adjustment period can be tough.
Then the bench could be Mitchell, Brown (or Kuzma), Tatum (or Barnes), Young, and Turner. Again, here you generally have a hierarchy with a couple scorers (Mitchell, Kuzma/Brown, and Tatum/Barnes) and two guys who can do some dirty work in Young and Turner. The cohesion should theoretically be better off the bat because you aren't asking players to be anything but themselves.
Add Tucker and Lopez to get to 12, and you have some good leadership as well.
Brown should but based on Walker being a lock and also probably Tatum, no way they take 4 Celtics. 
