Friday, August 31, 2007

The King James Version

The FIBA tournament of the Americas is almost over out in Vegas. Team USA is undefeated so far, having routed all opponents and seems in good shape to qualify for the 08 Olympics. Yeah, that's how far the mighty have fallen, we have to qual-e-fy to even get into the Olympics now, como si fueramos Lichtenstein!

Anyway, much credit has been given Jerry Colangelo for rescuing USA Basketball by ensuring continuity and choosing a well balanced team with "role players". I disagree. In terms of continuity, there are only 3-4 players on this roster that were also on the roster for the previous world championship team, and while there are role players on the roster (Micheal Redd?), they pretty much stink.

Team USA is LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Carmelo Anthony. Maybe Coach K should get some credit for getting them to share the ball, but those three should get the credit (or blame) for what is going down in Vegas and what will happen in Beijing.

Wednesday night vs. Uruguay Lebron scored 26 points on 11-11 shooting in 14 minutes of pt. Game over. As of last night's game vs. Argentina (USA won 91-76), James was shooting an "almost comical 79.7 percent (47-of-59). He is 14-of-20 from 3-point range, a 70 percent mark that also leads the event."

Kobe scored 27 against Argentina and Carmelo had been the scoring leader before these last two games.

This is the same old superstar driven Team USA (thank goodness). Credit should go to three young superstars who have decided to cooperate for a common goal and not to old white guys in suits!


2 comments:

John Thacker said...

Team USA is LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Carmelo Anthony.

Nope. This leaves out Jason Kidd. Team USA is much worse when he's not in the game, and has been every single game. It's been pretty clear so far that any one of LeBron, Kobe, or Carmelo can be missing and the team isn't measurably worse, but whenever Kidd's on the bench the team is not nearly as good.

Angus said...

Hi John: y'know, you have a point. though I hate to give that old wife beater any dap, Kidd has played great and probably helps create/enforce the sharing of the ball that has evolved between LeBron, Kobe and Melo.

thanks