usa basketball team beaten by italy

[JKurz1]

pretty f-ing embarrassing.........We should have sent Duke.......as much as I hate to say that word "Duke", they would smoke these teams........

 

[wutangnomo]

Shows how bad the NBA game has become. When they actually play fundamentally sound teams like those found in europe, they are lost because the one on one style game is far inferior. The talent is there, just not the right mindset or skills. I'd be pretty surprised if the U.S. even medals to be honest. If you watched the playoffs this year you would realize how low the level of basketball being played was. You see a higher level of ball at any upper tier college basketball game.

I disagree. Instead of looking at it from a US getting worse perspective, how about recognizing the fact that the international game has become much much more improved? It is only a matter of time before the international teams catch up. That's how it always goes. Just like Canada and hockey. We used to dominate hockey now even the US has caught up to us (let alone all those European teams). You can only be on top for so long before others start to slowly creep up there.... and sooner or later surpass you.

The US team has some pretty damn good players on it still, yet the just BARELY managed to beat the Germans. The US isn't slipping, it's just the international teams getting better.

 

[Robert Jan]

When it comes to team play in team sports you have to give it to the Asians.

Their relative global success in a game such as soccer without any real stars or individual heroes is interesting. If you play China in soccer, none of the opponents may scare you, but it appears as though there are 20 of them, rather than 11

 

[RaZor Ramon]

When it comes to team play in team sports you have to give it to the Asians.

Their relative global success in a game such as soccer without any real stars or individual heroes is interesting. If you play China in soccer, none of the opponents may scare you, but it appears as though there are 20 of them, rather than 11

They should have put an end to this dream team bullshit a long time ago. The point was proven in 1992. USA has the best basketball players in the world. The 1992 team was the only dream team. Everything else was just an all star squad. Now it's not even the top all stars. They need to just give it a rest. The top NBA players don't really want to play in Olympics and in a way I don't blame them. I know their teams don't really want them to play either. I know if I owned an NBA team I would want my multi-million star starting the season tired from the Olympic games.