Is the Bronze medal a "loser" medal for the US Men's basketball team?

[slinslin]

When you have half a year offseason it's hard for me to accept marriage as an excuse for not going to the olympics..

 

[George O'Brien]

I think Duncan has to be considered the goat of the team. He "does the right things," I guess, but it was pretty clear that he didn't want to be there. If it wasn't clear before, it has to be clear now, with his comments that he won't be playing any more international ball because "FIBA sucks."

He has often said that he dislikes playing center -- the U.S. team, in fact, had zero real centers, not one -- and to me, that showed up in his play. He's willing to defend the interior on a regular basis, but it's not, apparently, something that he prides himself in; and on offense, to be blunt, he really isn't a good finisher when it gets crowded around the basket. In the NBA, he does much better when he has more room to operate. We can say that he got fouled a lot, but it can't be any worse than NBA playoff contact. The difference, I think, has to do with where he was setting up and what kind of space he had.

I like Duncan a lot, but my opinion of him took a couple of big steps down with this tournament.

I guess when we look at seven foot guy who says "I'm not a center", it is hard to take him seriously. One of the big advantages Duncan has had is to have someone else play center and get all those center fouls that he was stuck with in the Olmypics. It looked like the fouls calls made Duncan rather tentative. At the same time, Duncan has not played center for extended periods since college. He really is a power forward.

The tough part of playing against the zone was that it negated Duncan's main advantage as a passer. There was very little "inside out" due to the zone and the lack of outside shooting.

 

[F-Dog]

The only thing I disagree with this year assessment of Richard Jefferson's defense. Jefferson is a rather physical defender. However every time he played at physical defense he was getting whistled for fouls. I don't think that he was any more effective than the other wing players (except for Anthony who was terrible). I also don't think that for the most part Boozer played very well defensively.

Joe Mama

No, I agree with this too.


Duncan getting into foul trouble was the reason the team lost, but I wouldn't go so far as to call him the GOAT, er, goat. It really did seem like he was being held to a double standard by the officials, and I can imagine how frustrating that must have been for him. It's no surprise to me that he was tentative and unhappy by the end of the tournament.

 

[BigBuddy]

an event that we INVENTED

Hold on a second, wasn't James Naismith Canadian?

 

[Yuma]

Yes! The game was born in Canada.

 

[Chaz]

Yes! The game was born in Canada.

No it wasn't, but it was invented by a Canadian.


Did you realize vollyball was invented at the same school about the same time?