Vasileios Spanoulis
03-26-2008, 05:23 PM
This is why the US keeps getting their rears kicked and why the American fans are so overly arrogant and so overrate the level of the NBA. They constantly hear crap like this from the media and supposedly "good" basketball coaches.
The players keep being told this stuff by their coaches no one can blame them for showing up with half effort then standing around in shock when Argentina or Greece beats them. Their own coaches feed them this BS. Also notice what he says about Yao Ming? Like it's some kind of brain washing or something that foreign players care about Olympics but poor US you know "of course we are better but we only try when we get paid for it." Unreal. This guy talks like the other countries like Spain, Argentina, Greece, Lithuania, Russia the better basketball countries are jokes compared to the US. Every excuse we hear. What exactly makes the US so arrogant about their basketball "superiority"? I can see it now, anything less than a gold in China and they will be on suicide watch.
Also he says "send the NBA champion" to compete in the Olympics :rolleyes: What a complete idiot. So send the Spurs minus Oberto, Duncan, Parker, Manu, yeah just send the Spurs minus everyone born outside the US. This guy is considered "one of the elite coaches in America" LMFAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/sports/basketball/26rhoden.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin
U.S. Team Needs International Mind-Set
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
Published: March 26, 2008
What becomes apparent during the N.C.A.A. tournament is that there is an abundance of outstanding basketball talent in the United States, from California to North Carolina, Michigan to Texas.
Each bench has an abundance of coaching acumen as well. So why hasn’t this embarrassment of riches translated into international success? Why are we wondering if a team of N.B.A. millionaires can do better than third place in a tournament in which most of the competition is playing for love of country and a modest stipend?
For all of this talent, the United States men’s team has struggled on the global basketball front. It finished sixth in the world championships in 2002, third at the 2004 Athens Olympics and third again at the worlds in 2006.
Expectations are high that the drought will end in Beijing this summer, when the United States will send yet another team of N.B.A. All-Stars to reclaim Olympic glory.
The team will be coached by Mike Krzyzewski, whose Duke Blue Devils were pushed to the brink by Belmont in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament before being booted by West Virginia in the second.
Not to worry.
“I think they’re taking all the strides to take back what we’re supposed to be doing — winning,” Coach John Calipari said Monday during a phone interview. His Memphis team will play Michigan State on Friday in a regional semifinal. “It’s not a hodgepodge of All-Stars, the way it was back in the 1980s, when we could show up and win because we were so much better.”
But if the men’s basketball team wins the gold medal, it won’t be because it mastered the international system or because Krzyzewski is a genius. It will be because the world simply has no answer for Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
The United States team, as it did in Barcelona in 1992 — when USA Basketball first felt compelled to use professional players — is still counting on a shock-and-awe approach to winning gold medals.
But shock and awe are not the answer. Pick-and-rolls are; so is having centers who can step out and shoot the 3 on offense and guard the perimeter on defense. Win or lose in Beijing, the United States, once and for all, must adapt to the international game.
“The international teams will play zone because they don’t think the U.S. can shoot,” Calipari said. “That’s the way teams play us. They’re playing a style that is a sharp contrast to ours and more suited to international ball. It’s a wide-open style of basketball.”
In the United States, it’s time to do the unthinkable: widen the lanes. Widen high school and college lanes to 16 feet, and widen the N.B.A. lane to international dimensions (yes, adopt the trapezoid).
Let’s concede, for a change, that the rest of the world has it right. Clearly, the United States needs to adjust, although the attitude among its coaches is that, far from needing wider lanes, the team simply needs to have the right mix of skilled players chosen every four years from our abundant pool of talent.
“We can play like they play, but better,” Calipari said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to players making plays, and our players are better.”
We’ll see about that soon enough.
College players should be put back into the Olympic mix. They were the staple of Olympic competition until 1992, and they bring passion and enthusiasm to the competition. Problem is, college players are no longer strong enough to compete at the Olympic level.
On the other hand, an all-star team of highly paid professionals may or may not be sufficiently motivated to endure the rigors of a nine-month season, then give it the old college try in Olympic competition.
In discussing the differences between international teams and the Americans, Calipari pointed to how Yao Ming went to great lengths to have an operation so he would be ready for the Games. “He had surgery for one reason — so he can play and represent China in the Olympics,” Calipari said. “It’s like guerrilla warfare, where the other guy is willing to die for his cause and you’re not. Now all of a sudden there’s a different mentality, and you’re not winning.”
Calipari was not suggesting that the United States’ players are not patriotic. Patriotism is deeply personal. However, among high-profile players, the notion of competing for one’s country is less pronounced inside the United States, where the focus is on playing for a professional team or a university.
The answer — for national pride and continuity — is to have some sort of permanent national team. Calipari has an even better idea: send the N.B.A. champion.
His idea would involve identifying a core group of eight or nine players from the championship team, then adding two to three players from the outside.
Widen the lane, concentrate on perimeter play, send the N.B.A. champions. Regardless of what happens in China this summer, the United States must change its global ways.
E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com
The players keep being told this stuff by their coaches no one can blame them for showing up with half effort then standing around in shock when Argentina or Greece beats them. Their own coaches feed them this BS. Also notice what he says about Yao Ming? Like it's some kind of brain washing or something that foreign players care about Olympics but poor US you know "of course we are better but we only try when we get paid for it." Unreal. This guy talks like the other countries like Spain, Argentina, Greece, Lithuania, Russia the better basketball countries are jokes compared to the US. Every excuse we hear. What exactly makes the US so arrogant about their basketball "superiority"? I can see it now, anything less than a gold in China and they will be on suicide watch.
Also he says "send the NBA champion" to compete in the Olympics :rolleyes: What a complete idiot. So send the Spurs minus Oberto, Duncan, Parker, Manu, yeah just send the Spurs minus everyone born outside the US. This guy is considered "one of the elite coaches in America" LMFAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/sports/basketball/26rhoden.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin
U.S. Team Needs International Mind-Set
By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
Published: March 26, 2008
What becomes apparent during the N.C.A.A. tournament is that there is an abundance of outstanding basketball talent in the United States, from California to North Carolina, Michigan to Texas.
Each bench has an abundance of coaching acumen as well. So why hasn’t this embarrassment of riches translated into international success? Why are we wondering if a team of N.B.A. millionaires can do better than third place in a tournament in which most of the competition is playing for love of country and a modest stipend?
For all of this talent, the United States men’s team has struggled on the global basketball front. It finished sixth in the world championships in 2002, third at the 2004 Athens Olympics and third again at the worlds in 2006.
Expectations are high that the drought will end in Beijing this summer, when the United States will send yet another team of N.B.A. All-Stars to reclaim Olympic glory.
The team will be coached by Mike Krzyzewski, whose Duke Blue Devils were pushed to the brink by Belmont in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament before being booted by West Virginia in the second.
Not to worry.
“I think they’re taking all the strides to take back what we’re supposed to be doing — winning,” Coach John Calipari said Monday during a phone interview. His Memphis team will play Michigan State on Friday in a regional semifinal. “It’s not a hodgepodge of All-Stars, the way it was back in the 1980s, when we could show up and win because we were so much better.”
But if the men’s basketball team wins the gold medal, it won’t be because it mastered the international system or because Krzyzewski is a genius. It will be because the world simply has no answer for Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
The United States team, as it did in Barcelona in 1992 — when USA Basketball first felt compelled to use professional players — is still counting on a shock-and-awe approach to winning gold medals.
But shock and awe are not the answer. Pick-and-rolls are; so is having centers who can step out and shoot the 3 on offense and guard the perimeter on defense. Win or lose in Beijing, the United States, once and for all, must adapt to the international game.
“The international teams will play zone because they don’t think the U.S. can shoot,” Calipari said. “That’s the way teams play us. They’re playing a style that is a sharp contrast to ours and more suited to international ball. It’s a wide-open style of basketball.”
In the United States, it’s time to do the unthinkable: widen the lanes. Widen high school and college lanes to 16 feet, and widen the N.B.A. lane to international dimensions (yes, adopt the trapezoid).
Let’s concede, for a change, that the rest of the world has it right. Clearly, the United States needs to adjust, although the attitude among its coaches is that, far from needing wider lanes, the team simply needs to have the right mix of skilled players chosen every four years from our abundant pool of talent.
“We can play like they play, but better,” Calipari said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to players making plays, and our players are better.”
We’ll see about that soon enough.
College players should be put back into the Olympic mix. They were the staple of Olympic competition until 1992, and they bring passion and enthusiasm to the competition. Problem is, college players are no longer strong enough to compete at the Olympic level.
On the other hand, an all-star team of highly paid professionals may or may not be sufficiently motivated to endure the rigors of a nine-month season, then give it the old college try in Olympic competition.
In discussing the differences between international teams and the Americans, Calipari pointed to how Yao Ming went to great lengths to have an operation so he would be ready for the Games. “He had surgery for one reason — so he can play and represent China in the Olympics,” Calipari said. “It’s like guerrilla warfare, where the other guy is willing to die for his cause and you’re not. Now all of a sudden there’s a different mentality, and you’re not winning.”
Calipari was not suggesting that the United States’ players are not patriotic. Patriotism is deeply personal. However, among high-profile players, the notion of competing for one’s country is less pronounced inside the United States, where the focus is on playing for a professional team or a university.
The answer — for national pride and continuity — is to have some sort of permanent national team. Calipari has an even better idea: send the N.B.A. champion.
His idea would involve identifying a core group of eight or nine players from the championship team, then adding two to three players from the outside.
Widen the lane, concentrate on perimeter play, send the N.B.A. champions. Regardless of what happens in China this summer, the United States must change its global ways.
E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com