Team USA 2024
- Thread starter ifmanis5
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We have new neighbors in the house behind ours; they just moved from Miami. They told us that they lived next door to Bam's mom and said that Bam was basically the nicest person in the world. Very quiet and softspoken, but incredibly nice.
Maybe this was covered earlier, but I was surprised to learn that Embiid became a French citizen in 2022. As that was a very recent decision, it seems puzzling to me that he decided to play for Team USA.
whenever an opponent needs a good look they isolate Curry (or Halliburton).
Steph hasn't been HIM yet, but at some point he'll go cuckoo and the party will begin
Maybe he didn't want to suffer the indignity of being benched for Wemby, or he just wanted a guaranteed title. His reason for not playing with France was, in part, because of France's history of African oppression. That's a perfectly fine reason, obviously undercut by the fact that said oppression occurred (and was well known) prior to the last 2 years.
I appreciate this. As a guy/coach who struggles to be on the cutting edge it probably bothered more than it would others. Not everything is linear improvement.
Steph wouldn’t be the first shooter so didn’t adjust well to the different ball. That can affect a shooters game aside from just the shooting. Or he could be struggling with his role of not being a high minute guy who has an entire game to get into his pockets of rhythm. He is quickly joining the Embiid/Tatum group of suckitude. Kerr may have a 6-man rotation locked in by the medal round at this pace lol.
Ismael Romero and George conditt. Ismael is listed as 6'8 220, and went undrafted in 2013. Currently 33 years old. Conditt is 6'11 234, played at Iowa State and went undrafted in 2022. I believe both guys have spent some time in the G league, but not in the NBA, and no decent international leagues either.
So, matchups.
The size and length advantage that we will have over Puerto Rico should make this look like one of those Dream Team games of '92.....then the real games begin.
We got a glimpse at the actual downside of international play (beyond hurt feelings and wounded reputations) today. AD and Holiday both rolled their ankles, and White took a pretty nice shot in the back that was really scary for a moment (I was glancing down and missed it live, looked up and saw him face down on the court, not moving in the middle of the action).
A starting lineup in the knockout rounds of Holiday/White/Lebron/Durant/Davis (easily the five guys that have looked the best throughout, plus Bam off the bench) would be quite the group. Steph seemed to have more trouble defensively today than usual, I don't think it helps that most of his minutes were either next to Booker or Haliburton.
I think it is interesting to watch the guys like Steph who don't have much FIBA experience try and wrap their minds around the foul differences, etc.
Steph did have that highlight 3-pointer at the end of the Serbia game, but he was very, very off today.
Steph did have that highlight 3-pointer at the end of the Serbia game, but he was very, very off today.
All I want to know is how much action you have on $imoney or the Golden Girls
French fencing & Chinese Ping Pongers must have your attention, how do you fit in the hoops?
Zero action except for Men’s basketball. South Sudan was a 2u winner for the Discord crew today.All I want to know is how much action you have on $imoney or the Golden Girls
French fencing & Chinese Ping Pongers must have your attention, how do you fit in the hoops?
I'm not worried about his overall game, but his shooting has been a concern for awhile now. Not sure what it is, but it looks broken at times.
So the US is through to the Quarterfinals as is Canada, Germany, and France. They play Puerto Rico for a top seed. If they beat Puerto Rico, they have 17 point differential over Canada who is playing Spain. If Canada beats Spain, then Spain will most likely be the US opponent for the QF (unless of course Canada beats them by a wide margin and the US squeaks by Puerto Rico, then they get the winner of Australia, Greece). If Spain wins we can get in descending likelihood Spain, Australia, France, Canada, or Germany.
He is forcing his shot and there is a hitch in mechanics where he is not transferring his lift through his shot. I think some of it is due to him trying to avoid fadeaways and some of it is him forcing the issues and trying to muscle through. His first shot where he dinged the 3 was actually mechanically good in terms of transferring his energy through the shot, However Tatum just rushed the shot and didn't square his body to the hoop, He always wasn't quite in his spot in the corner which I am not sure why he didn't take a moment and adjust (maybe afraid of a FIBA travel).
In this first shot you can see Tatum receive the ball in space, he has time to adjust and pivot his right leg back a bit to square his shot.
Instead he rushes the shot, that said he gets into his shooting motion
You can see while he never squared his body he did transfer his lift smoothly through the motion, the issue is he cannot glide the shot easily since he is not square
I cannot stress enough how little I am concerned about Jayson Tatum and his jump shot. I know people have their heart in the right place, but I think we all need to take a deep breath before projecting his performance onto next season. He JUST won the title a couple of months ago.
It's also like folks forget that he goes through long streaks where he shoots like peak Steph and then streaks where he shoots like peak Marcus. There's a lot of history of his shot getting broken and then fixed. He has 2 years over 40%, 2 at .350ish, and 3 in the middle.
Tl;dr; he'll fix it. He always has.
If I remember correctly, Jordan had heard going into the Croatia game that a player on their team, Toni Kukoc, was real good and Chicacgo was looking at maybe bringing him to the NBA. Jordan, naturally, "took that personally" and tried especially hard to make Croatia's day - and Kukoc's - a living hell.
Croatia were the second-best team at that Olympics, they played the Dream Team the closest of any opponent (32 in the group-stage match, 32 in the gold-medal match), and they ousted the pseudo-Soviet Union in the semis 75-74. They fielded 5 future NBAers - Kukoc, Drazen Petrovic, Dino Radja, Zan Tabak, Stojko Vrankovic. Like, these guys were legit among the best international teams in the world. That they were the ones who ended up getting humiliated like that, 32 steals... all the more remarkable.
It won't, because we could run the Select Team out there against Puerto Rico and still win by 20. So Joel Embiid will play 20+ minutes against PR, just so that when we actually have to sit him during nut-cutting time in the knockout rounds, it won't become a story then.
I expect some light minutes for Lebron and Durant vs PR as well, even if you can't give them the game off. We need those two at 100%, and they're no spring chickens.
Here's a fun article on the bolded - it was actually a Jordan/Pippin combo jam brought about largely because Jerry Krause loved Kukoc and refused to re-do Pippin's contract to try and free up money for Kukoc. So MJ/Pippin destroyed him in the game.
https://www.nbcsports.com/olympics/news/toni-kukoc-michael-jordan-scottie-pippen-dream-team
I just don't think Team USA really has to worry about matching up with the other team's strengths in 99.5% of games.
Something tells me the South Sudans of the world are thrilled that team USA is changing things to matchup with them. It is certainly strange.
Obviously Embiid hasn't been good so it makes some sense. But in general, if you have a dominant player at a position the other team cant match up with, it's odd to remove them so that you can match up with their inferior lineup.
I'm sure the South Sudan "center" was OK with it.
I think vs Jokic is the only 'matchup' to even consider lineup-wise, honestly. Maybe Giannis as well, though with him it's just your regular guys anyway - there's no obvious scheme/personnel adjustment to him.
This team is outrageously more talented than each opponent. They don't have to scheme anything at either end for anyone - they just have to play hard and play smart and execute well. They haven't played much together so that is harder than it sounds, but I truly do not believe this is about scheme or adjustments.
There is nothing strange at all about optimizing matchups. Why on earth would you want Embiid to be exposed on a bad matchup against 3-point shooting centers who can put the ball on the floor? Why wouldn’t the South Sudan bigs love having clean looks from beyond the arc all game? It’s the same matchup optimization in having 3 fresh centers pounding on Jokic for an entire game.
Yeah we can get away with all that in these group games but if you are not coaching the game to the best of your ability you shouldn’t be coaching as it sends a terrible message to the players that the coach doesn’t have to try and get the best team on the floor versus that particular opponent.
He did, but no thanks to his shooting. We don't need to go through the stats again (or do we?). He played well overall but his shooting was bad. Thankfully Jaylen, Jrue, and White were fantastic too.
Agreed, but I do not think taking out a better, more versatile player because they had a couple bad practices or scrimmages represents good coaching either. I doubt you would really so it does!
I mean it has been MUCH more than that for Tatum though.....back when it was in the early stages I agreed but that was then and this is now. I began discussing him being a bad fit for the closeout lineup back in the prelim games (or whatever we are calling them). He was given a great opportunity to rebound vs South Sudan and responded with another clunker before being benched in the 2H. From my perspective he's been on the same untrustworthy bus as Embiid. Kerr keeps giving them both shots but once we get to the medal rounds I don't expect him to be using a 10-man rotation in a 40 minute game. Those who perform and are connected with the rest of the group will be getting the bulk of those minutes. Curry is the next one who will be on the hot seat if he doesn't get it going.
It's odd to me that "optimizing matchups" always seems to be just to try to mirror the other team's roster (but fortunately, with better players).
Is there some reason we are trying to match up with the other teams, rather than using the mismatches we are fortunate to have?
If the other team doesn't have many good wings, should we be using more of our wings or less of them?
Matching up isn't simply mirroring the other teams lineup. With Embiid on the floor we'd be giving South Sudan a significant advantage by not being able to execute our defensive sets against their 3-point attack. They play a spread offense which is a major weakness in Embiid's defensive game. Which part of this are you debating? He would hurt us MUCH more defensively than any gain, if there is a gain (I'd argue that he would stagnate our offense by forcing the ball into him), offensively.
I'm not honestly disagreeing re:Embiid or anything about that specific game.
But I do think with the far superior team, Kerr is getting a little too close to "over-tinkering" in an attempt to match up with far inferior opponents.
Sometimes the other team is going to welcome the fact that we are not playing our best lineups in an attempt to match up with them. We might want to err on the side of playing our best players the most.
If CJM started Sam Hauser over Porzingis in an attempt to get more wings in the game against a smaller team, we'd all probably say....wait a second, but who on their team can guard KP??
Well we played that way the first time against South Sudan and was down double digits. I’m glad Kerr made the necessary adjustments and we took care of business in making their lives more difficult than the first matchup.
ESPN's NBA Today had a fun stat.
Guess how many starting lineup changes the 1992 Dream Team had during its run to gold?
Guess how many starting lineup changes the 1992 Dream Team had during its run to gold?
6
The only constant starter was Jordan.
The only constant starter was Jordan.
Tatum was terrible from 3 in the playoffs 28.3% on 7.3 3PA (It's carried over to the Olympics)
Brown wasn't all that much better 32.7% on 5.8 3PA.
Thank gawd for Derrick White 40.4% on 8.5 3PA
These three were solid (but all below their regular season average):
Horford 36.8% on 5 3PA
Jrue 40.2% on 4.6 3PA
Hauser 38% on 3.7 3PA
Hearing that Jrue is todays guy being “benched” to keep the 10-man rotation intact. Poor Tyrese….he’s become our Christian Laettner lol. Don’t mind resting our 34-yr old in a Puerto Rico rout if true.
Jrue has been one of Team USA's best players. Kinda weird to be benching him of all people.
I wouldn't really call it a "benching" when it seems like we will keep rotating someone with Haliburton each game. He's coming off a 100-game season, is 34, and hasn't had an offseason. For a team not at risk of not advancing I just as well it be him. Kinda surprised it wouldn't be AD being that he turned his ankle last game and this game isn't like the first two as far as importance plus Puerto Rico is really really bad.
Edit: Forgot that he tweaked his ankle last game. It didn't seem like much but all the more reason to rest him today if we do.
The USA Women vs Belgium game was really entertaining btw guys, thanks for posting about it. It's easy to underrate Belgium. People forget about Meesseman because it's been 5 years since she was WNBA Finals MVP, but they have a bunch of legit talent and size/strength on their team. Those teams were both playing hard.
more specifically, Kerr said yesterday that Jrue would be starting against PR (as USA wants top seed so point differential matters) but Jrue is now questionable with his ankle.
Team USA focused on No. 1 seed; Jrue Holiday has ankle injury - ABC News (go.com)
I’m excited to see Embiid flail around against PR’s midget guards like Jose Alvarez and old friend Tremont Waters.
If team USA doesn’t win this game by 40 points, I will be surprised. even if Kerr has to play the dregs of his squad like Tatum and Hailburton heavy minutes.
If team USA doesn’t win this game by 40 points, I will be surprised. even if Kerr has to play the dregs of his squad like Tatum and Hailburton heavy minutes.