The Official NBA Season Thread: I’m like Jayson Tatum in the Olympics I'm not playing

[elpablo21]

KD practices his jumpshot in the middle of a night club and at Drake's house by the pool

His old *** will be there for LA

 

[B Sox]

Everybody other than Tatum/Book/Bam/Ant should play in 2027 in Qatar. Try to actually build something.

Would like those guys to play too but realize that may not be realistic.

 

[dmbrhs]

“Dey catching up”

Can we stop with this? Its cringe. They catching up because they competing now?

Mainly because the world "caught up" a long time ago.

Barkley said after the Atlanta Olympics (which he played in) that he could already see a huge difference in just the four years between Barcelona and Atlanta, and predicted Team USA would get seriously challenged soon. They barely made the gold medal game in Sydney, got embarrassed at the 2002 World Championships, then got embarrassed at the 2004 Olympics and 2006 WCs semis by Greece because nobody could defend a pick and roll.

 

[dmbrhs]

They usually don't win FIBA World anyways so idk if folks are counting that

They only won it twice before NBA players started participating. Even then, the 1998 team was college players due to the lockout, so they had no chance. They've only won twice since 1994 (2010 and 2014).

 

[addict4sneakers]

Are these other countries able to keep producing talent though. You see what Argentina and Spain look like now. Greece had to get 2 Americans to even get to the Olympics and that’s with Giannis.

France keeps pumping out talent but they too have to replace an old guard and outside of wemby, their young players aren’t ready

 

[rolaholic]

How’d I miss this one? A couple weeks after the finals. Did someone drop this in here at the time?


Link

Lyles is a royal dickhead.

Dude really moves like hes the American Bolt

He's yet to reach Michael Johnson and Carl Lewis status yet though irl

 

[lawdog1]

Are these other countries able to keep producing talent though. You see what Argentina and Spain look like now. Greece had to get 2 Americans to even get to the Olympics and that’s with Giannis.

France keeps pumping out talent but they too have to replace an old guard and outside of wemby, their young players aren’t ready

Fair point.

Unless they start letting the Balkan countries pool their talent and those countries won’t want to do that.

 

[B Sox]

Lot of these countries are good because the cores been playing together for a while. Dudes are gonna age out and the new guys aren’t gonna have that same level of cohesion.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I have more faith in America's young prospects and pros than the rest of the worlds

 

[elpablo21]

Are these other countries able to keep producing talent though. You see what Argentina and Spain look like now. Greece had to get 2 Americans to even get to the Olympics and that’s with Giannis.

France keeps pumping out talent but they too have to replace an old guard and outside of wemby, their young players aren’t ready

For one game, yeah

We saw what the Semis looked like. All it takes is one bad run and not having a player capable of going nuclear to keep within range

And to add who will actually show up

This was Steph's first Olympics. 's be busy sometimes

 

[aepps20]

Team USA uses the World Cup/Championship to establish continuity with lower tier or budding stars to get them international playing experience. People looking for the next KD, Steph or Bron need to remember just how many hours they logged with Team USA. Steph and Durant were on that 2010 team. Steph was on 2014 and Bron has been on almost every USA team since 04. As long as guys keep committing to the World Cup, Team USA will keep being very competitive in the Olympics

 

[IATT]

It was absolutely Larry Brown’s fault - same with Darko’s career. He has this weird thing about playing young players that somehow continued to the Olympics. I remember that Lebron, Carmelo and DWade would get put in with the team in a hole - they’d go on a run and then Brown would sit them all again and they’d lose. It was just bizarre.

100% on Larry brown.. they overused AI and Marbury both guys bad fits for the international game

Shoulda been pop and let him build the team actually around Duncan

 

[antidope]

Are these other countries able to keep producing talent though. You see what Argentina and Spain look like now. Greece had to get 2 Americans to even get to the Olympics and that’s with Giannis.

France keeps pumping out talent but they too have to replace an old guard and outside of wemby, their young players aren’t ready

This is where I am with it. You just don't have as many players that are good enough to compete. Every person lost is a massive loss for any team other than Team USA, They lost Kawhi Leonard and its like "whatever just go get Derrick White". Any other country implodes if they lose that guy.

 

[aepps20]

Are these other countries able to keep producing talent though. You see what Argentina and Spain look like now. Greece had to get 2 Americans to even get to the Olympics and that’s with Giannis.

France keeps pumping out talent but they too have to replace an old guard and outside of wemby, their young players aren’t ready

Many of those countries are in the middle of their golden generation and when they age out they will revert. Look what happened to Spain. Also continuity, length of game and familiarity can somewhat negate talent but when Team USA has continuity the results are very impressive.

 

[elpablo21]

Team USA uses the World Cup/Championship to establish continuity with lower tier or budding stars to get them international playing experience. People looking for the next KD, Steph or Bron need to remember just how many hours they logged with Team USA. Steph and Durant were on that 2010 team. Steph was on 2014 and Bron has been on almost every USA team since 04. As long as guys keep committing to the World Cup, Team USA will keep being very competitive in the Olympics

I don't think the US will have any real issues but it's not like you need a team built to win a 7 game series

Wemby can be what Jokic looked like for Serbia and get potentially the job done with some decent shooting around him

But overall US will be fine. All fun to speculate

 

[DCAllAfrican]

QU!K

 

[lawdog1]

Michael Johnson Told Us About His Forgotten Nike Sneaker and Those Gold Spikes

We interviewed Michael Johnson and he told us about the Nike cleats he made famous, along with the Zoom JST, his first and only sneaker.

www.complex.com

Michael Johnson had as high an American profile after the ‘96 Olympics as any track and field athlete I remember in my lifetime.

His shoe flopped (although it’s apparently tremendously valuable on the secondary market because there’s barely any left).

 

[aepps20]

It was absolutely Larry Brown’s fault - same with Darko’s career. He has this weird thing about playing young players that somehow continued to the Olympics. I remember that Lebron, Carmelo and DWade would get put in with the team in a hole - they’d go on a run and then Brown would sit them all again and they’d lose. It was just bizarre.

I’m convinced that Larry Brown wanted to teach US basketball a lesson about “playing the right way”. I don’t think he really cared about winning. He had an agenda and bringing his stars down to size was part of it. He was also a liar and his lies were so egregious that David Stern had to come out and say the players played hard and respected their opponents but they couldn’t make shots. Larry Brown insinuated that the players didn’t play hard and didn’t respect their opponents but he was the clown that had to be pulled away from fighting a coach.

 

[Mark Antony]

The jealousy and insecurity is out of control. Bordering on weird.

 

[DCAllAfrican]

I mean..........

 

[freeze]

So the guy on IG that makes food requests from his fire escape made the tees the players were wearing.

Joe Vadakkedam | Fire Escape Cooking on Instagram: "USA Basketball T-Shirts & Breakfast 🇺🇸 🥇🍳 The real story behind the shirts I created for the World Champions of basketball 🤫"

49K likes, 1,123 comments - thejoemustgoon_ on August 11, 2024: "USA Basketball T-Shirts & Breakfast 🇺🇸 🥇🍳 The real story behind the shirts I created for the World Champions of basketball 🤫".

www.instagram.com

General release is better imo

 

[QU!K]

QU!K

The obvious reason is probably because it’s not top 10 like Steve

Fitting you get your news from hater report

 

[picasso swerve]

The jealousy and insecurity is out of control. Bordering on weird.

I dont even think its jealousy or insecurity, dude is just weird.

 

[antidope]

Cool. I am all for this. Go out there and win the MVP. Show up Steve Kerr when you play GSW. Do it.

 

[Mark Antony]

Michael Johnson Told Us About His Forgotten Nike Sneaker and Those Gold Spikes

We interviewed Michael Johnson and he told us about the Nike cleats he made famous, along with the Zoom JST, his first and only sneaker.

www.complex.com

Michael Johnson had as high an American profile after the ‘96 Olympics as any track and field athlete I remember in my lifetime.

His shoe flopped (although it’s apparently tremendously valuable on the secondary market because there’s barely any left).

What was his shoe? I remember him basically being the face of the air max 97 and this