the dream the team redeemed

Assists is one of the vaguest stats in all of sports. It is subjective from statistician to statistician.

Check Stockton's assists at home compared with on the road.

Chee, do you have a URL that has these assists numbers?

 

I don't have "proof" offhand but I won't lie for the sake of upholding some online argument.

The point is, that U.S. team lead ALL teams in assists during the Olympics. And for some to all of a sudden make the assist some vague subjective stat is beyond hilarious to me and shows the lengths some will go to uphold their argument.

 

I wasn't referring to that particular team. I was trying to make a point

What I'm saying is that the single most important factor when you're putting together a team for international play isn't the length of time together, it's how well the coaching staff (and management) communicate their team philosoophy and how quickly they take these players and make them feel as one. You don't leave that up to the players.

Look, we do it all the time in this country.

There's the Olympics every four years but every year there's also the World Juniors, the Under-18 tournament, the U-17, the World Hockey Championship, the Women's Hockey Championship--God, even the Spengler Cup.

One thing Hockey Canada does is team build. It's as important to our success as the players playing.

And most of the time, they have a week. Max.

 

No offense, Chee, but I think I'm gonna have to see a link before I definitively buy that stat. I believe this thread is the first time I've heard anyone assert that, and I must say that doesn't quite jibe with my memory of how that team played.

That team used Marbury and Iverson at the point, two very much more scoring than passing minded guards; nor do I recall it featuring any other assist-minded players. You could be right, but that surprises me if true.

 

Even if the US played a little "me-first" ball . . . when you are beating someone by 30 points, you likely are going to have more assists.

Not all assists are the result of ball movement and unselfish play. Sometimes it's just a steal, and flip the ball to the open guy uncontested.

Over the course of a half-dozen 28-point wins --- and playing more games than all but three other teams --- it would not surprise me at all if they had more assists.

 

Well, it should work in basketball because hockey's a more complicated sport AND you also are dealing with 1) larger playing surface in international hockey and 2) IIHF rules. 3)IIHF refereeing.

So, if basketball hypothetically needed more than 20 days to "gel" , hockey, by extension should need anywhere from 30-45 days.

All I can say to that is, nonsense.

 

Wade says he wants another go. If you keep that group together and add in some combination of Oden, Durant, Iguodala, Beasley, Mayo, Kevin Martin ... you've still got a heck of a squad. I think it's important that the core of the new group be established for the '10 World Championships. Wouldn't want to see somebody go there and decide he'd had enough at that point. Would rather see the main guys together for 3 years again.
And JR -- the key to the whole "not enough time together" concept is that Greece's, Argentina's and Spain's core players functioned together on junior national and senior national teams for several years. There was a real familiarity there, and that made an impact. If they just grabbed 10 guys and showed up for the Olympics the US would have been in better shape.

 

I think the biggest difference between '04 and '08 was how the two units played. Notice I said "units."

In '04, it seemed to be a collection of stars, not a team. Perhaps a lot of that was Larry Brown being inflexible and trying to get that group to play his way. Perhaps it was a matter of not getting the group to gel as a team. Perhaps there were other factors involved.

In '08, these players were a team. Perhaps a lot of that was Mike Krzyzewski, who was successfully able to command the respect of a bunch of multi-millionaire pros. Perhaps other factors are involved, but that was a team.

Was it perfect? No. Would it have beaten a Dream Team at the top of its game? Who knows? But this team's elation over winning certainly reminds me of Magic Johnson's genuine joy over being an Olympic champion.

 

I'm sorry you don't believe me, but that was a stat I clearly recall and am NOT making uup for the sake of being on SportsJournalists.com.

It dispells this mantra that U.S. players are selfish, especially when you look at the lack of true PG coming out of the international ranks. The international game isn't condusive to creating PG's who distribute the ball.

And lets take a look at the US. losses

http://www.usabasketball.com/seniormen/2004/04_moly4_box.html
http://www.usabasketball.com/seniormen/2004/04_moly1_box.html
http://www.usabasketball.com/seniormen/2004/04_moly2_box.html
http://www.usabasketball.com/seniormen/2004/04_moly3_box.html
http://www.usabasketball.com/seniormen/2004/04_moly6_box.html

The one constant was the US ball distribution being on par or better than the teams they faced and Tim Duncan struggles to get out of foul trouble while being TO prone.

Invite all of the other things you want, but that US team distributed the ball. They simply had the wrong coach and a lack of preparation before the games.

 

They had just as much assists and more even in the games they lost or played tightly.

so your point simply isn't true.

 

Absolutely.

When this year's team won the gold, they celebrated as a TEAM. I don't believe that all of them showing up at the press conference was staged or phony. I believe they genuinely felt as much (maybe more) of a team with USA on the front of their jerseys than they do with their NBA teams.