As a basketball fan, player, and occassional assistant coach, it is difficult to watch the United States team play. They do not lack talent; Indeed, the team assembled this year is comprised of the best players in the world...
...At running the floor, slashing to the basket, and blocking shots. Seven of the players are the long, lanky, quick slash-and-dunk types. The three point guards, if you consider Wade, Marbury, or Iverson true point guards and not shooting guards trapped in point guard roles, also penetrate and score well, but cannot consistently hit outside shots. The three big men are all deft beneath the basket, excellent rebounders, and solid defensively, but cannot extend a defense. In short, I cannot think of a team, ever, more ill-suited to playing offense against a collapsed 2-3 zone, or at defending the perimeter. It is here where Italy and Puerto Rico simply dominated the United States. By shutting down the area 15 feet and in, they shut down the entire US team. Unfortunately, though he is a great coach, Brown will not be able to counteract the 2-3 zone with any strategy: he lacks the personel to attack it in the half court set, and his point guards have been reluctant, or too disaffected in the case of Iverson, to bother pushing the ball up the court with the speed necessary to beat the zone; i.e., using the fast-break offense that shoots before the defense can set up. There is no team at the olympics right now that can keep up with a lineup of Duncan, Marion, Anthony, James, and Iverson. However, to make the fast break offense work, you have to shut down perimeter shooting and control the defensive boards. Against Puerto Rico, we did not shut down the outside shooting at all, leading to more offensive rebounds for Puerto Rico (three pointers rebound farther from the basket, giving the offense a better chance at grabbing the ball), and more made perimeter shots, which stalls the fast break offense (you can't fast break off of a made opponent basket). Iverson and Marbury, further, lack the height to defend the 6-5 guards of the other teams on the perimeter: you saw Brown adjust for this at the end of the PR game, with 6'10" Odom guarding Carlos Arroyo. The US team is a perimeter defender and outside shooter away from dominating the game like they once did. However, without these things, they fall prey to a basic zone and spread offense. My 12-man USA dream team for this year? Here it is, NOT including any of the players who were invited, but decided not to come:
C -Tim Duncan
C -Ben Wallace
C -Carlos Boozer
PF - Zach Randolph
PF - Amare Stoudemire
SF - Ron Artest
SF - Michael Redd
SF - Shawn Marion
G - Michael Finley
G - Sam Cassell
G - Stephon Marbury
G - Chauncey Billups
Richard Hamilton was hard to leave off the list, and the team lacks its big, bruising type of player that has bone spikes coming out of his elbows and whose stat line at the end of the night reads " 6 points, 3 assists, 2 blocks, 11 rebounds, and five ridiculously overt fouls". Still, though, having power forwards that know that they're supposed to dig in on the blocks (lamar odom shooting threes is a mockery of the sport), skilled centers who can defend and grab every rebound that exists, scoring small forwards, one of whom is a perimeter specialist, and a collection of guards as proficient at hitting clutch jumpers as they are running a team. Give me that collection of players, rather than Lebronshawn Anthonmiredom and Dewallen Marverson (get it, they're all the same darn player), and we'll bring home the gold, and tear apart a few 2-3 zones while we're at it.
I can't believe that we won the 2000 Olympic games in baseball, yet we can't represent ourselfs in 2004?
