Thirty is the new fifty for USA Basketball
By la287 (or Aaron)
Team USA’s dissection of the Spanish team kind of puts this out of proportion, but consider it official: Thirty is going to be the new 50 for USA Basketball.
Long gone are the days where the original Dream Team demolished teams by 50 point. The game was over after the first quarter. The opposing teams barely scored what the Dream Team scored in the first half, humiliated from start to end.
But over the past four years, Team USA has lost multiple games, settled for a Bronze medal in Athens, and is winning games by only a dozen points. Even the Los Angeles Clippers beat another pro team by 26 points once last season. Why can’t the best-of-the-best NBA All-Stars beat Angola by more than 21 points? Has something gone wrong?
The Dream Team days are over, until the next revolution in American basketball. Team USA may always be the favorites, but they aren’t gargantuan favorites any more. International play has drastically improved over the past few years. The national teams spend far more time practicing and competing together, instead of taking a two-week vacation and photo shoot in Las Vegas.
Though Kobe Bryant was joking around with teammate Pau Gasol, I believe that the American team is going through the tournament treating themselves like the underdogs in every game. It’s a cliche, but they have to take it one game at a time, especially as preliminaries are coming to a close.
Of course, this whole argument is awfully nitpicky, but the Redeem Team needs to keep an eye out behind them. They’ve played overall solid basketball, although Dwyane Wade has mostly been the only exceptional one so far. Their two best x-factors are speed and depth. Spain held the lead for a decent part of the first quarter, but ended the game as the Redeem Team’s biggest victim so far.
Don’t be surprised to see USA Basketball to pull out some nailbiter wins, this year and throughout the future of international play. Foreign countries are finally seeing their dedication pay off. Thirty points is still an impressive blowout, considering the extent of practice time and roster turnover.
Team USA is playing hard, no doubt about it. Their lack of experience playing with each other makes the American’s domination even more impressive, but the easy medals are a thing of the past, and forever will be.
