thought so highly of scoop jackson’s espn.com column on the redeem team that i wrote him the following…
dear scoop,
excellent column on the question of usa dominance. to me, the issue is that an excellent team can beat a team of superior players, and i have the feeling that offseason practices notwithstanding, the redeem team still doesn’t get the benefit of being a team that, for example, a team like spain did. i’d wager that, for example, the celtics would destroy the redeem team, as would the lakers and the spurs and the pistons and possibly even the hornets for that matter. personally, i’d be very interested to see an nba *team* compete in the olympics. the problem there might be that team owners might be conflicted (read: opposed) to having their team play games that wore the players out and risked injury without getting any compensation…then again, maybe they make it back in promotional value. but the other problem is that the nba game and the fiba games are so different that it might be hard for an nba team to make the transition…maybe rules changes that they say are in the offing to make the two games more similar will have a better effect. but somewhere in this mix should be a question about why some countries’ teams seem so much more than the sum of their parts in big games.
maybe the reason coach K focused so much on D is he knew how difficult it would be to get players schooled in the kind of one-on-one or two man games that have developed since jordan dominated to play that team game that guys like magic and bird had down so well, and could run in their sleep.
anyhow, interesting questions, and i’m glad you raised the question…thx….
Talkin' Pro Hoops 