How did I know this thread would be embarrassing before I opened it?
Team USA loses….again
- Thread starter JFCats22
- Start date
- Status
I don't watch much of the NBA anymore but it is not about protests or social change. It just seems kind of boring and undisciplined until the final few minutes. However, for whatever reason I do like seeing the USA win in the Olympics because basketball is our sport. So seeing us lose with shots flung at the basket and weird defense is frustrating. Maybe they will get serious when the contests are real but losing even these games is an embarrassment and shameful but again nothing to do with politics that some here keep commenting about.
Right, the issue isn't that the players suck, or lack of pride, or whatever other nonsense. The issue is that they're not a team. For a brief moment we were trying to have some continuity on the team, have guys play together in other FIBA competition so that for olympics they'd have some experience playing together in international play. Now we're back to sending a collection of stars who don't mesh well together into a whole unit and who have had like 3 practices together before playing these games that have slightly different rules, substantially different refereeing, and substantially different play style from opponents than they're used to. I thought sheet talent would carry us, and maybe adding Booker, Middleton, and Holiday will make a difference, but I'm certainly not optimistic at this point.
Lack of big guys I was definitely worried about, but I don't even know who we would have added. What big guys in the league are American, healthy, and worth putting on the roster?
Well, he didn’t do himself any favors coaching USA basketball in 2017. He lost to Canada coaching the U19 USA team in the World Cup. Bronze medal.
Uh. NO. He tried it with U19 and failed.
shame to remaining guys who do bust their asses and play for ALL the right reasons , just not " OMG __________ got paid " But I'm a dinosaur from the 80s when hoops was played by men.
Cal wasn't exactly dealt a stacked hand, his star player was Reddish, that's all you need to know.
Cal always has the odds stacked against him, just ask him.
Not a Popovich fan so it is nice to see him struggle. Seems like since Duncan retired he's not been the coaching genius people have made him out to be. Having said that I do agree with his political views so he does have some smart to him.
I think he's a really good coach, but they also just had a great front office that constantly drafted well and found good role players to fit in with their stars, and they maintained a core of guys for a very very long time. Even the year after Duncan retired, they made the WCF before losing to the Steph/Klay/Durant Warriors. Then Kawhi screwed them, Parker and Ginobili were washed (and then retired) and the roster just isn't there like it was before. DeRozan is their best player, Aldridge is declining, and everybody else is a role player.
POP doesnt suck as a coach- in fact he is one of the best- however he needs time and the right players to develop his system and the Olympics are probably the wrong situation for his style
The last FIBA showing was pathetic. Placed 7th I believe. The world has gotten significantly better, both Nigeria and Australia had several NBA players or college stars, but that shouldn’t come close to what Team USA should be capable of.
I do think this roster is poorly constructed. The NBA is a position less game, but Olympic play is not. Durant and Tatum are the tallest players and they’re wings. They don’t have a matchup for a true center, they don’t have a reliable paint scorer, and their guards are all basically the same type of player other than Holiday when he arrives.
Assistant. Explains why we keep losing though.
With equal size, a fundamentally sound team playing team ball can beat the US team fairly easily. We do this all the time with our AAU team. We play a ton of teams that easily out athlete us, however, most aren’t prepared to play against a team that plays in the correct position, moves without the ball, rebounds (boxes out no matter where they are on the floor), and attack the glass as a team. USA basketball absolutely produces the best athletes, but not the most skilled players IMO.
My issue, and follow up question, is that I don't think any country could even keep pace with some of the recent Golden State teams. But why? We certainly have more talent on the US team than any of the GSW teams.
So is it more about cohesion and reps than anything? Are these countries having more time to practice, and maybe keeping the same players, while the US has their NBA season leading right into the Olympics, constantly changing rosters? Seems to me these international teams just have more time together.
I just don't buy Australia beating a single NBA team from this past year.. not one. But they can beat our US team? How?
Edit: except the Rockets.. We'd probably lose to the Swedes.
Way too much thought about kneeling and raised fists instead of basketball Check the women's soccer team's pregame ritual. Today it's about the name on the back of the jersey rather than the front.
Every team that loses does so because they don’t agree with my political views. It’s not that complicated.
Hey, I would agree, and you would have a much stronger point had many of these players not used their platform in some of the most anti-American ways while then representing America in the Olympic Games.
I think whether someone agrees or disagrees with their message, there is something to be said about guys joining a self admitted anti-American movement while then playing for the country they claim is evil. It at least has to make one think hmm…
I mean, you won’t stand for the flag but you’ll compete / play for it?
Having said that, these guys are proven to be very uneducated and lack the power mentally to understand anything they’re doing so, it is what it is. But I definitely think just pointing to political party politics in this case reduces the entire situation into a simplistic view that doesn’t really describe the entire story. It’s a bit more head scratching than that I’m afraid.
And I am afraid.
Protesting things that are wrong with the country does not make someone anti American. Do you consider the people that protested the lockdowns anti American?
No, because protesting a lockdown is not comparable.
If, say, the people protesting the lockdown then went to volunteer for an advocacy group that’s main goal was to implement more lockdowns, it would be comparable.
Even if someone agrees, they promoted an organization for over a year that called America evil, racist, and even wanted to change the entire system we have. I think even if one agrees they must at least think this is a bit funny. Right?
We both are going to run into the wide and varying range of intentions of the protestors. Some of the lockdown protestors wanted to be able to open their businesses (noble) and some thought Bill Gates wanted to inject microchips in them (insane). Some of the BLM protestors wanted to stop cops from killing POC (noble) and some want to get rid of law enforcement (insane). We've got a lot of kooks on both sides and they tend to get the spotlight, in my opinion undeservedly.
I wish we had more people that would look at the core issues and try to find solutions rather than regurgitating talking points of the fringes of both political parties that consider their constituents cannon fodder piggy banks.
Well I just don’t think it’s the fringe. Many of these NBA players stated they supported an organization that called for America be disbanded as an evil nation. I can only go by their actions, and they themselves supported this group. If I claim to support neo nazis, I don’t get to change the meaning to fit my individual agenda. I’m supporting neo nazis.
I mean they could have easily had said “I don’t support BLM as an organization but I support Black lives”. But they didn’t.
I was merely pointing out that It’s a little comical for some of these guys to represent America after the last years worth of the “BLM” fiasco. I don’t see where that’s taking an ideological position.
Having said that, if you had said, “hey man, they have no idea what they’re doing. They aren’t academically nor intellectually sound enough to understand these breakdowns”, then I’d have more room for agreement. But that’s not what we’re doing. On one hand I’m supposed to believe they’re outstanding gentleman who understand the nuance, are intelligent, and have carefully thought this through, but on the other I’m also supposed to understand why someone who thinks America is evil also wants to volunteer to represent that same country in the olympics.
I’m merely pointing out that this is a bit comical. But this is what happens when the most free nation on earth continues to peddle in a grievance industry. It will begin to look foolish and make little sense.
The truth is the Black coalition is a voter bloc of a political party vehicle, and with the civil rights era becoming more distant, with less and less Black Americans actually experiencing inequality, and with less and less Black Americans remembering why they’re supposed to vote for said vehicle, the vehicle needed them to focus and remember. All we have to understand is this political vehicle cannot survive with the 13% black vote diversifying by voting action. That’s why none of it really makes sense, and why it’s happening. But that’s a thought for another thread I suppose.
Hey it’s a discussion board. I like the ideas no need in getting nasty.
The problem isn't skills or fundamentals or caring, the problem is simply this, we send all star teams and they send experienced teams. In that situation if you don't have overwhelming talent then you'd better be the experienced team or you're getting beat.
This post has so many factual inaccuracies that I figured Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson wrote it.
BLM/CRT does posit that the US is evil, it exposes the truth about how the nation was founded and built. You can appreciate something and still point out it's flaws.
One question, how do you judge the percentage of black americans who are discriminated against? Hell, my own mother, 65 years old and a lifelong conservative went shopping in the Myrtle Beach area with her brothers granddaughter and her african american friend and she watched as people followed her through store after store. Racism is alive and well in this country and anyone with a brain can see it, Trump even built a campaign on it. But it's still fun to see white folks talking about how equal everything is as if we would know how it feels to be black, asian or hispanic in this country.
The thing is that doing something like supporting BLM or kneeling during the anthem will literally piss of half or more of the people you depend on to support your field of work is not very smart. How can you expect to get their support for a cause by pissing them off.
These players should have protested by not representing the US in these games.
Ali protested the Vietnam war and draft by refusing to go. He never ran away to Canada, he stayed right here, accepted the punishment for his actions. That was a man that held true to his beliefs. I disagreed with him, but I respected for holding true to his principles.
I think many Black Americans begin disadvantaged for numerous reasons, mainly due to the family breakdown and negative culture that surrounds many as children. The social science is fairly clear on this issue, we just don’t want to approach it because many social scientists also benefit politically from the idea it’s due to other factors.
As far as racism being alive because an individual may have followed your family around is purely anecdotal and there’s no way to use it to support your claims. For one it may not even be true, for another it’s an individual. I think the “follow me in a store” routine is fairly interesting. To me it’s used as a means around the fact that you’re running out of iron clad evidence of oppression and, further, reaching for anything to maintain your position because it’s politically expedient. Many Black Americans are taught, culturally, that eye contact is a negative. So you simply don’t know if what many experience is truly racism or not. Many feel that way, doesn’t make it true.
White Americans are actually not very racist at all today. I think many of the racist actions are coming from other groups directed at white Americans and each other. Many Black communities are often not very open to other races and their ideas. Hispanics in Mexico are very nasty to Blacks. Blacks are very consumed with the shade of Black one is.
It’s all relative - it’s just that everyone is afraid to say it because political parties have forbidden it as a political tactic.
A friend of mine posted this on another forum
To my fellow Blacks in America:
You can't control the hearts and minds of other people, you only have control over YOUR ATTITUDE and YOUR ACTIONS.
That being said, just imagine...How much more peaceful, and prosperous would and could your life be...if you consciously chose to never again view yourself as A VICTIM?
Please understand that there are 4+ Million people in America who are either immigrants from, or the children of immigrants from the sub-continent of India. Many of them are just as dark-skinned as the average "African-American". But they are universally "dunking" on Blacks in the Free Market of Jobs, as if they are Harlem Globetrotters playing the Washington Generals. They have a median household income that is 3-TIMES that of "African-Americans".
There is one reason, and one reason only for their success. They do not have a VICTIM mindset and GRIEVANCE spirit. The "non-people of color" who have racism in their hearts feel just as racists toward East Indians as they do toward "African-Americans"...but East Indians have not let that stop them from having a median household income that is DOUBLE that of your average "non-family of color".
They have embraced THE FREE MARKET and focused on providing a product, good, service/skill-set that THE FREE MARKET wants and/or needs.
Ask yourself this. How often have you met anyone who is an immigrant or child of immigrants from East India, who are professionally anything other than a Medical Professional (Doctor or Nurse), an Engineer (Computer, Software, Electrical, Aerospace, Mechanical), or some sort of Business Owner (Hotel, Restaurant, or Convenience Store)? Are you running that question through your mind?
They do these things, because these are things that THE FREE MARKET wants, regardless of the ethnicity of the person who provides those things, at a high quality and a fair/competitive price.
There is nothing stopping Blacks in America from having the exact same level of economic prosperity, and social peace as East Indians, other than the absolute necessity of consciously choosing to reject a victim mindset, reject #CulturalMarxism, and get a renewed mind that embraces the fact you are where you are in life because of the way you see yourself. ~ Unhyphenated America
“A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile, and commences to search for the hidden justice which regulates his life. And he adapts his mind to that regulating factor, he ceases to accuse others as the cause of his condition, and builds himself up in strong and noble thoughts; ceases to kick against circumstances, but begins to use them as aids to his more rapid progress, and as a means of the hidden powers and possibilities within himself.”
~ James Allen, from the book, "As a Man Thinketh"
The core is issue this is the greatest and least racist Country in the World. This Country has equal opportunity for all ethnic groups if people strive to acheive. Problem is we have a small amount of people telling us how bad our Country is and nobody in the Media holds them accountable.
- Status
Similar threads
