USA Basketball Team

The USA Basketball team coached by “Coach K” of Duke is going to the summer Olympic games in Beijing , China to try to bring home the gold medal in the sport we invented. It’s hard to believe that the USA is not as dominate as we thought we were in the sport. The rest of the world has made great strides in basketball over the past decades. We see the influx of great foreign players in the NBA as evidence of this.

Look at Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs. He’s from France of all places and he’s got to be rated as one of the top point guards in the NBA. Of course others players like Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Manu Ginobili and Fabricio Oberto from Argentina. The list goes on and on of great players from other countries throughout the league. The consensus seems to be that these “back to the basics” foreign players are here to stay in the NBA.

This shows that the talent level of other countries in basketball has gotten much better. We also have not seen the US dominate the international basketball seen as it did so easily with the original dream team. Do you remember those guys? Wow! What a team! Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and other greats. It seemed after this that the USA could just pick any NBA players and throw them together and win. Uh, NO. We learned a lesson a few years back as our USA team that had no great shooters on it was whipped buy the sharp shooting basketball competitors.

To win you have to have a team with the right pieces as well as talent. You have to have guys willing to put NBA egos aside and do whatever it takes for the team to win. Coach K feels he has the group to do that in Beijing. There are no doubt superstars on this team, Kobe, Lebron, D-Wade but it’s not a one man show. It’ll take a total team effort to bring home the gold and stake America’s rightful place as the best in the world in the great sport of basketball.