LOL.
Derrick Rose broke his legs in 2011 and was never the same in 2014.
Curry did not become a superstar until 2015. The same can be said for Harden although his recognition of superstardom is 1 year earlier than Curry.
Anthony Davis was a 2nd year player in 2014.
I can't believe you said this USA Team is lacking defense. LOL This team has 4 ALL NBA 1st Defense honor player on the team, Jimmy Butler, Paul George, Drumond Green, and DeAngre Jordan. You are talking about 4 HIGH quality defender and I'm not even counting 2 VERY GOOD defender in Durant and Klay Thompson. DEFENSE IS NOT the reason this team faced trouble! It is the OFFENSE, or more specifically it is the ISO-heavy offense that are played by HEAVY-iso players like Kyrie Erving, Carmelo Anthony, Demarcus Cousin. What funny is there is nobody on the Team USA who know how to run an offense. LOL In fact, the best playmaker on the team is 6'9 Paul George as opposed the traditional sense of a PG role. In addition, with Lebron and Curry, you are talking about two 1/2 elite offensive player in the history of the game. I'm not talking just the current, but the greatest of all time. And it is laughable that you think Lebron will not help out defensively. LOL He IS still the greatest wing defender when he wanted to. He basically anchored that Cavs D in the final against the offensive firepower Warriors.
I can tell that you don't really know basketball. A lot of guys who play basketball don't really understand the game. We call them low-IQ basketball player. It seems you fall into that category as you don't really understand how the game is played international and at the NBA level.
Like I said, what come down to is the Team USA 9 of the top 10 NBA players didn't participate. Had they particpate, it would be a repeat of 2012 domination and the Olympics should drop basketball. LOL
Here is the result of the same team against Australia with PRIME Andrew Bogut in 2012 competition and 2014.
USA 119
AUS 86
USA 129
SERBIA 92
You are saying a lot of stuff I did not say, maybe you don't understand what I said at all? Or you are trying to play it like I don't know anything about basketball? I don't know.
First of all, I never said this team lacking defensive player. I said this team is a weak team because the way they play the game is in direct conflict of how this team should have been, they don't play defensively. The two claim are very different.
This is what I said. in the previous post.
Some people question how weak this team, but the ground reality is that this is not a weak team because of the player itself, but because of the way we played basketball. .
The defensive power is lacking, that is not directly the result from the player, but rather how the team play the game, of the 3 games I actually saw (vs China, vs Venezuela and vs Australia) almost all the games are play with Man on man, the problem is that while it work on a lower tier team, meaning they are bound to miss a lot of shot anyway, however, when you are facing team that can shoot, you can no longer let them shoot and try to get a quick transition and take advantage that way.
In a blow by blow game, if your opponent can keep up with your scoring, then you will start losing the tempo of the game, and that present a challenge to the team USA.
Your offensive power is only as good as the other team missed, any second tier coach can tell you that. Think about this, you can try to trade blow by blow to an opponent, but if they miss as much as you do, you will definitely draw a game and maybe worse if other stuff start getting into your way (like FT% and 3 Pt-%)
This team does not play defensively, and that is a fact it does not change even if you add player such as Curry and LeBron James. Not that I say LeBron James is not good at defence.
Second of all, when you study statistic, it always show you just one side of the story, because it did not show you how your opponent perform. Take your Team USA vs Serbia in 2014 championship and 2016 Olympic game.
FIBA reports
http://www.fiba.com/basketballworldcup/2014/1409/USA-Serbia#|tab=boxscore_statistics
http://www.fiba.com/olympics/2016/1208/USA-Serbia#|tab=boxscore_statistics
Statistic wise, in the 2014 games, Team USA were almost dominating in every sector. While in the 2016 game, every statistic offered by Serbia is either almost as good or better than team USA. Now, it's easy to say 2016 team is a lot weaker than 2014 team (or you can say 2014 Serbia team is a lot crappier than 2016 team) but the answer to the question is not about how US team was. But rather how Serbia perform.
Similar situation you are looking at Serbia shooting the ball 57.1% in 2016 and ending up 3 points behind Team USA, however, when you look at how the game actually played You see the US is actually using zone to zone out Serbia and make every shot harder for them to make and hence their FG% falt about 10 % between 2014 and 2016. the Serbian Player is the same, but since the US push harder in a zone, which block most of the ball downtown, hence Serbia only shoot 5 of 20 (20%) compare 15/30 on the US Team, of which Irving sink 6/6, which are already 1 more than the whole Serbia team.
The transition make the different between 2014 and 2016 games, this is not something you can see from the statistic itself, and this is how US play the game.
It's seems like you have no idea how Basketball works, on the other hand, I read the game, not statistic, statistic can at most be a good indication on how a team perform, but it is of no indication on how they face an enemy, it's a "What should happen" category, in actual games, things usually happen differently. You are what we basketball player called handicap number cruncher, you crunch number, not actually how a game being played, it may work well in fantasy league, but it does not work in actual ball game.
Also, Steph Curry is already an all star in the 2014 championship, and it peak right after the championship in the 2015 season, a talented basketball does not make overnight, he is already very talented in 2014 and just because his statistic and award said otherwise, that does not mean Steph Curry is a star in 2014
and Finally Andrew Bogut was not in London Olympic Australian Team, he was in London as a commentator, as he had a broken feet/ankle.
