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coach k = fraud

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by HoopsMcCann, Sep 1, 2006.

  1. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    If you think about it, just how great is the NBA marketing and hype machine - year after year, these superstars flounder, and scores of people will defend to the death that these are "the best players in the world!"

    Hats off to Stern and the execs in Manhattan.
     
  2. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    I know this isn't what most of you want to hear (especially BYH) but I still think what this team needs most is Kobe Bryant. For starters, he spent half his childhood in Italy, so he doesn't have the automatic disrespect for the international game that the rest of our guys do. Second, he handles the ball well, he has probably the best mid-range game in the league, and he knows how to get to the foul line (where he shoots like 85 percent) when his jumper isn't falling. Lastly, and most importantly, he can actually plan man-to-man defense, which is more than I can say for Wade, Melo and King James.

    Better still is the fact that he and James actually seem to like and respect one another, and I really believe Kobe wouldn't show up and demand to shoot 40 times a game, regardless of what many of you think. When he gets healthy, put him on the team, lock him in his room at night, then trot him out for games and watch him kick foreign ass. You may not like it, but then, losing isn't a lot of fun either.
     
  3. HoopsMcCann

    HoopsMcCann Active Member

    kobe would be huge for this team, i'm just afriad kicking isn't all he'd do to that foreign ass
     
  4. FuerteJ

    FuerteJ Active Member

    For all those who say the US will never win in soccer, just look at basketball. There was a point where people said the US would never lose in basketball because it's "our" sport and we're just better. It's not that way anymore. You're starting to see more and more Americans play internationally in soccer. The time is coming. Maybe not in the next 4-10 years, but it's coming.

    And as for the game this morning, the way the US defended the pick-and-roll, the fourth-graders I coached in intramurals while I was in high school could have beaten the US using that play. They p-and-r in college and in the pros. At some point, you've got to change or adapt to what the other team is doing. The US didn't this morning and it hurt. Also, Greece hit just about everything it threw up, including random 3's from random schmucks.
     
  5. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    I imagine there is enough money in Jerry Colangelo's USA Basketball budget to supply Kobe with a stream of Chinese hookers in 2008. And if Kobe chokes one ("It's my thing, you know...") and gets thrown in a secret Communist prison somewhere in the Shandong Peninsula, well, at least we tried.
     
  6. FuerteJ

    FuerteJ Active Member

    dude, you missed my point. I wasn't saying Americans are either going to play one or the other. I'm just saying there's going to be a day when the US catches up to the world in soccer like the world caught up to the us in basketball.

    My statement had nothing to do with numbers; only made a statement of parallels.
     
  7. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    Yawn! The U.S. played a basketball game last night?
     
  8. HoopsMcCann

    HoopsMcCann Active Member

    nope... was this morning
     
  9. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    Ummm... Greece, I think.
     
  10. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    LaBronze. That's funny.
     
  11. Vic Mackey

    Vic Mackey Member

    Personally, I cannot stand Krzyzewski. I believe him to be a phony of the highest order, a guy who looks at himself in the mirror for 12 hours a day, a guy who trashes his local media while kowtowing to the nationals, a guy who personifies the line Paul Evans once tossed at Rollie Massimino: "A good person until he won a National Title and fell in love with himself."

    But I don't perceive this to be the disaster some of you are calling it. This is not the tournament this team was put together to win. That tournament is still two summers away. Right now, we are going through the same introspection Canada did in hockey about eight years ago. In 1996, Canada lost the World Cup of hockey to the U.S. In 1998, it finished fourth in men's hockey and second in women's hockey (which only still has two good teams) in the Olympics. And, its under-20 team, which won five consecutive gold medals from 1993-97, began a seven-year run when where it never finished better than second.

    That introspection paid off. Canada's men and women won gold in 2002, with the men winning the World Cup again in 2004. The Juniors are two-time defending gold medallists and the women were so dominant in Turin that there were calls to remove the sport. The men did lose in the quarters, but that will happen, and no one is panicking.

    The Canadian hockey program recognized some truths that USA Basketball is also learning. Yes, in terms of sheer volume, no one turns out more good players than the United States in hoops and Canada in hockey. However, at the elite level, we have been matched. In hockey, other countries' top 20 can beat Canada's top 20. Just like in basketball, where other countries' top 12 can beat our top 12.

    Both Canada and the USA made errors in skill development and coaching development. Too many games at youth levels, not enough practices. And coaches around the world were improving their systems (many initially tought to them by North Americans), while the NHL and NBA devolved into wrestling matches. (Starman, it's interesting. I covered the U.S. team in Greece and I agree that the referees were unfair toward Duncan. I couldn't blame him for being frustrated. But when watching many of the other big men from other countries, you couldn't help but notice how much more they moved at both ends of the floor. Now, are those guys more mobile than Duncan? I don't think so, we all know the guy can move. That's the problem. Canada and the USA always complained that international hockey referees screwed them over-and-over. But it was because the NHL allowed the game to become thuggish. If we hadn't bastardized the two sports so badly, I'm not sure refereeing would be an issue.)

    The Greek team is an excellent example of what USA basketball is striving for. Greece, Yugoslavia and Croatia are three of the few nations where basketball is more important than soccer. While the Yugoslavs and Croats were always strong contenders, Greece was an underachiever. Before winning the European title in 2005 -- an impressive victory -- they didn't have a podium finish in an Olympics, a Worlds or a European Championships in 15 years. Its fans demanded better -- much like ours did -- and its leadership listened.

    They looked hard at their basketball program and rebuilt it the same way the US is doing now. This American team can adjust, figure out what went wrong and fix it. They will be playing together again, which is crucial. They can tinker, they can change a player if they want. At least there is a plan, which was sorely lacking in Athens.

    The only thing that concerns me is that heyabbott might live in my neighborhood.
     
  12. Wow. A Paul Evans reference!
    Now THAT'S old school.
    (He was right about Rollie, too, but Evans became just as big a jackass when he decided he'd invented David Robinson.)
     
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