Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Discussion of the league and of our favorite team.
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Nodack
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by Nodack »

Durant was off his game. I think this exhibition game meant a lot more to Nigeria than the USA.

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pickle
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by pickle »

That Agada kid looks good. Won’t get ahead myself and start looking to next year just yet tho.

The Nigerian team has a lot of NBA talent. The play by play says Monta Morris was eligible to play, as was Adebayo, Okongwu, and Okafor is on the team also.

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Flagrant Fowl
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by Flagrant Fowl »

I think it was Malcolm Gladwell who I heard once argue the point that Nigeria should really be dominating the Olympics due to how many athletes are long decedents of the area.
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3rdside
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Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by 3rdside »

The amount of nba players Africa has directly produced (so not African Americans..) is shockingly small considering there’s a billion black dudes out there … the nba has been building some pretty solid infrastructure out there tho from what I know.

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bajanguy008
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by bajanguy008 »

Scola is still playing ??
Wow

Didn't know Thybulle was playing for AUS
Patty Mills in the Aussie jersey is always something to see lol

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Nodack
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by Nodack »

I watched the Nigeria game. I thought it was cool that they won. It won’t matter that much to the US team or count for the Olympics but, it meant a lot to the Nigerian team, their country and their continent. They played well and deserved the win.

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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by bajanguy008 »

For those who interested
Game currently still playing

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Flagrant Fowl
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by Flagrant Fowl »

Thanks for the YouTube link. I was trying to watch on Twitch and the connection was terrible.
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3rdside
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Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by 3rdside »

USA lost again, this time to Australia..

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bajanguy008
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by bajanguy008 »

Patty Mills in an Aussie jersey 🤐
Vs Pop too so must have enjoyed this

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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by bajanguy008 »

Oh dear

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pickle
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by pickle »

US team has no defensive rhythm and lacks an inside presence on the offensive end. Live by the three die by the three scenario right now.

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In2ition
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by In2ition »

Isn't this typical Pop behavior and how he likes to groom his team? They start off slow, looking bad, and then they start to gel. Unfortunately, he doesn't have until May to get them in championship form to win multiple 7 game series. Maybe he doesn't realize that, just like he doesn't realize that the USA team actually does usually blow these teams out in exhibition. Losing to Nigeria is not really a thing we've ever seen before. Having a close game to Nigeria is not something we've ever seen before. Pop, pull you head out of your ass and get this team together and stop being an ass to the reporters. This isn't the NBA, and you aren't a king of shit. You don't have 5 months to get it going.
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Flagrant Fowl
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by Flagrant Fowl »

Team USA is just going through the same issues it's had for the past 20 years.

1. FIBA is a competition, the NBA is entertainment. Team USA players are conditioned to play NBA basketball, which sometimes resembles an entirely different sport compared to FIBA.

2. Most national teams have a very shallow talent pool compared to the US, so their roles and familiarity with each other are solidified over years of practice together. Team USA has a preliminary list of like 50-60 players even a couple of months before the competitions start.

3. This one is the most important. For the most part, American talent has plateaued while the rest of the world is now getting their generational talents more often or for the first time. Now it seems for every Zion, there's a Luka. This coincides with the spread of talented coaches and scouts, mostly from the US, who have also greatly helped speed up the program development of many nations.
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Charlie Smithy!
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by Charlie Smithy! »

Flagrant Fowl wrote:
Tue Jul 13, 2021 2:41 pm
Team USA is just going through the same issues it's had for the past 20 years.

1. FIBA is a competition, the NBA is entertainment. Team USA players are conditioned to play NBA basketball, which sometimes resembles an entirely different sport compared to FIBA.

2. Most national teams have a very shallow talent pool compared to the US, so their roles and familiarity with each other are solidified over years of practice together. Team USA has a preliminary list of like 50-60 players even a couple of months before the competitions start.

3. This one is the most important. For the most part, American talent has plateaued while the rest of the world is now getting their generational talents more often or for the first time. Now it seems for every Zion, there's a Luka. This coincides with the spread of talented coaches and scouts, mostly from the US, who have also greatly helped speed up the program development of many nations.
Words...can't begin to describe how much this hurt for me to read. And what hurts even worse, is that I see where you're coming from. And maybe I don't even disagree. Goddammit, FF. 😔

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pickle
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by pickle »

In2ition wrote:
Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:58 am
Isn't this typical Pop behavior and how he likes to groom his team? They start off slow, looking bad, and then they start to gel. Unfortunately, he doesn't have until May to get them in championship form to win multiple 7 game series. Maybe he doesn't realize that, just like he doesn't realize that the USA team actually does usually blow these teams out in exhibition. Losing to Nigeria is not really a thing we've ever seen before. Having a close game to Nigeria is not something we've ever seen before. Pop, pull you head out of your ass and get this team together and stop being an ass to the reporters. This isn't the NBA, and you aren't a king of shit. You don't have 5 months to get it going.
What is his alternative though? Throw his players under the bus? He might have been pissed off, and he hasn't ever had a good track record of giving the media sound bites that we all know they want to hear, but given that this team was thrown together literally at the last second, and they clearly don't communicate well on defense, I think Pop is doing the right thing by deflecting attention away from their general discombobulation and making the story a slight bit more about himself.

US will be okay. We'll never see the type of dominance from the Dream Team ever again, but this team will eventually get its act together. Not to say that it's a sure bet to win the Gold, but what we saw on the court for the first two exhibition games are not what the US is capable of.
Last edited by pickle on Tue Jul 13, 2021 5:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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pickle
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by pickle »

Flagrant Fowl wrote:
Tue Jul 13, 2021 2:41 pm
Team USA is just going through the same issues it's had for the past 20 years.

1. FIBA is a competition, the NBA is entertainment. Team USA players are conditioned to play NBA basketball, which sometimes resembles an entirely different sport compared to FIBA.

2. Most national teams have a very shallow talent pool compared to the US, so their roles and familiarity with each other are solidified over years of practice together. Team USA has a preliminary list of like 50-60 players even a couple of months before the competitions start.

3. This one is the most important. For the most part, American talent has plateaued while the rest of the world is now getting their generational talents more often or for the first time. Now it seems for every Zion, there's a Luka. This coincides with the spread of talented coaches and scouts, mostly from the US, who have also greatly helped speed up the program development of many nations.
This is a great take FF. I'll add a couple of observations on top of this, though my observations might be kind of cliche.

4. The US team is not really a team, in that it's filled with primary scorers who are all used to getting 20+ shots a game and masking their lack of presence on the other side of the ball with their offensive output. Lillard, Beal, LaVine, Booker, and to an extent Middleton/Tatum/KD all fall into that category. These guys are also too used to getting the superstar calls and getting pampered like babies around the basket. The Australia game, the last few minutes had pull up three after pull up three, nobody attacked the basket whatsoever. Other than some cuts, the US has no inside presence whatsoever.

5. Colangelo had tried to build a real team by asking players for a multi-year commitment, but in recent years I guess that has been relaxed? The US Olympic team will never have real role players who come and just do the dirty work. Bam/Draymond/Grant kind of play those roles, and Pop made the adjustment to start Draymond and Grant in the Australia game, but there is no clear hierarchy on these teams other than the players wanting to be friendly to each other and not seem like dicks to the media and fans, but I can't imagine any of them are truly happy to play 3rd fiddle. Guys like Tatum just don't know what to do when they aren't getting touches every trip and he doesn't know how to play the PJ Tucker role.

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Flagrant Fowl
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by Flagrant Fowl »

I don't think of it as a bad thing at all. I love basketball, so it's great that the sport is developing globally. I'd much rather watch a competitive tournament than see Team USA pound their opponents by 50 points. In fact, I would hardly watch the latter.

Maybe he went about it the wrong way, but I agree with Popovich in that press conference. Don't be fooled by the media narrative that Team USA should steam roll everyone because that's what they did in previous generations. Those are just click-bait hot takes.

Not to get far off topic, but it relates to part of the issue with the USA national team program in the past; the superiority complex held by a large number of Americans is an ignorant discredit to other nation's abilities to develop their own talents.
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Flagrant Fowl
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by Flagrant Fowl »



The Clippers are in trouble from a roster building standpoint.
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pickle
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Re: Around the League: Week 14 3/22-3/28

Post by pickle »

How long is that to recover from usually?

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