There’s still an ocean to a basketball class

It is clear that the title, if read as such, could provoke more than a few controversies. Today we talk about a gap that still exists, by a large margin between the US National Basketball team and the rest of the representative teams, even the ocean, in the NBA with a Serbian MVP, the Greek Finals champion, a French defender of the year and a more “universal” permanent presence in what was previously considered The sport of Americans, that might sound like a powerful statement. It may be risky. However, the feeling one gets from watching Team USA on their way to their fourth consecutive Olympic gold after the 2004-2006 Olympic World Cup Combo defeat and China’s failure in 2019, is that Removing the many minutes of laziness and shallowness of a slate in which there was little genuine feeling of wanting to step on the accelerator In the face of the large spread of players on vacation or near, a total of 10-15 minutes of real commitment during the singles matches played in Tokyo was the minimum necessary to bring victories home and the maximum commitment that could be expected from a group of players who reached Japan after a grueling season in the NBA. As it was in the semi-finals against Australia, it also happened in the end against France in the race that was deserving of gold: A quarter of an hour or so at a very high level, many distractions to make opponents come back, a new distraction once they come back into contact.

Read this way Team USA seems to be the only real opponent of Team USA itself, as if there was no opponent in 40 minutes, but the truth is not much different from this view. 29 years (exactly the anniversary yesterday, August 8) of Barcelona’s first and original “Dream Team” Olympic gold medal, the team consists of the 12 best American players (11 in this case plus Christian Lattner, the top collegiate team at the time ) present in the NBA at the time (excluding those disqualified due to internal controversies, see Isiah Thomas), rare defeats between friendlies (the striking and strongly symbolic pre-Olympic games against Nigeria and Spain) and official events alone are not sufficient to prove disqualification The much advertised USA and FIBA ​​Gap, since then Handmade Few Minutes From High by Kevin Durant and Jrue Holiday proves essential to smash any resistance, even in a team that is very far from attacking in an acceptable manner and often resorts to the exploits of its most representative players. This last circumstance had put totemologist Greg Popovich on the dock, one of the most successful coaches ever, who perhaps more than anything felt the real weight of a potential failure of the expedition, then venting all the tension in the post-match with France.

Considering all the factors that historically complicate the American campaign so much compared to the others (formation of the ‘roamer’ roster due to the disparity between the names of the first call and the actual present after the various defections, and a different judging procedure for everything), a team that doesn’t even come close to bringing the real best players into the arena – And we don’t want aliens Kevin Durant and Damien Lillard, but along with Steve Curry, LeBron James, Kohye Leonard, James Harden, Anthony Davis, and many others, the music was a lot more different — and that He allows himself a quarter and a half or two of playing at maximum intensity on the two halves and then flops in complete slack mixed with chaos throughout the rest of the game, can only be defined Still light years away from other citizensthe. which the NBA front is still replenished with new elements (France had 5 NBA finalists, Australia had 3 players of the caliber of Mills, England, Thibault, Nigeria eliminated more in the groups) but still found an insurmountable obstacle her in Basketball does not shine for liquidity and property distribution, but for her sake, just one extraterrestrial and supporting second fiddle right (in this case Kevin Durant and Puppy Holiday), Lillard and Tatum certainly not in Celtics format enough to illustrate concepts with mini-string-parties that were, attack-defense, The leitmotif of the entire tournament. Which culminated in the final match against the French, where an entire competition performance could not have been the best poster in a single match. US up front, double-digit advantage, gap narrowed to one/two owned by Collette’s men and new partial, and so on, even gold.

The gap is increasingly narrowed, so I predicted defeat at first after two stops in a friendly match, but in essence, the last editions of the Olympics gave us 4 gold medals for Team USA. A difference of +27.5 points in a row (Beijing 2008, record 8-0), + 32.5 points (London 2012, record 8-0), + 22.5 points (Rio 2016, record 8-0), + 20.5 points (Tokyo 2021, record 5-1). All this despite the tough competition expectations, the ratings that saw the US even fall behind other teams (Australia, France, Spain) and the feeling that the non-US gold-winning moment was already up in the air, on top of that in the competition in which stars and representative streaks showed it to be Bear more and more, Olympian.

Conclusion: Talking about a gap and a margin that still exists is not an insult against FIBA ​​Basketball nor an arrogant and overwhelming American claim to supremacy.. The talent of Team USA, albeit gradually declining if we make it to the whole roster (this team may have lacked 6/7 of the best players to be called up) and in the second lines, is still simply too superior to that of the other teams, even if She was net of the growing number of non-American NBA stars and currently at the top of the world’s most beloved league. The impossibility of working in one group for several years combined with fundamental differences in organization and arbitration led to the rest, but it is from the rest that it clearly did not fill the famous ocean between the two parties. It still takes a long time to dislodge the US from the top rung on the podium.