why do you think the rest of the world isn't getting better at basketball?

Let's be honest - this is our B team and yet they were able to beat teams by over 20 a game. After 2004, one would think the gap would be closer but it seems it is a lot wider today... almost similar to the gap when the original Dream Team played. So what happened? Why did the rest of the world stopped improving?

Developmental systems. Other countries can't compete with ours. We rank our kids from very very early childhood. They compete nationally at a very young age, and they compete at a high level almost immediately.

Big schools and the USA program identify them early on and they compete for national rankings.

No one else has anything like this in basketball at the level we do.

Same reason we aren't on a higher level in soccer. We don't have the sort of developmental systems that other nations have.

Rest of the world has football as first sport by far, USA has superbowl, baseball and basketball before football. Think that is the reason.

yeah, what the other guys said. alot of the players that would of been fantastic at basketball are going into soccer(football) which is the primary sport for the rest of the world. the leftovers pickup basketball. which leads us to where we are at now. absolutely no competition on the international stage

Isn't a large percent of the world poverty stricken?

[QUOTE=Booz Vivic]Rest of the world has football as first sport by far, USA has superbowl, baseball and basketball before football. Think that is the reason.[/QUOTE]

True, but even we are improving at soccer. We made the round of 16 this year when teams like Spain (the defending champs), Portugal, etc. couldn't even get out of pool play. We also have the most number of players this year playing in top-level leagues like the Premiere League, Bundesliga, etc. so even though soccer is like our 5th major sport, we're improving immensely.

Teams like Slovenia, Lithuania, etc... these teams have basketball as their top or top two sport but they aren't improving that much overall.

[QUOTE=JohnFreeman]Isn't a large percent of the world poverty stricken?[/QUOTE]

Thats also a deal, why africa usually lags a little bit behind in football is jus bcuz they havent got money/coaching etc

In football some of them are similar to european countries, like ghana nigeria algeria etc

Natural talent/athletic ability is something you can't teach

[QUOTE=JohnFreeman]Isn't a large percent of the world poverty stricken?[/QUOTE]


yeah, this too. you can't really play basketball on any type of surface. dudes can't practice a crossover trying to bounce a ball on dirt

Usa sort of fluked out of the groups. Football u can win while being second best. Vs. Ghana they were sevond best but won, vs. Belgium they had howard playing a blinder. Without him they wouldd have lost BIG. They are getting better at football, yeah, but theyre peobably at the highest level they can realistically reach.

It's because USA is essentially a continent going up against countries. A continent vs continent basketball tournament would be more interesting.

Athleticism makes all the difference. All white USA team wouldn't be able to dominate like that at all. In fact, I doubt they would win against teams like Spain.

Natural athletic ability is something you can't teach.

[QUOTE=jzek]
Teams like Slovenia, Lithuania, etc... these teams have basketball as their top or top two sport but they aren't improving that much overall.[/QUOTE]
You are out of your mind with this statement. Slovenia, country with 2 million population is TOP 8 NT in the world. Also football is waaay more popular in Slovenia. It's success what we did, if we had more luck and if Australia didn't lost on purpose we could be in for a medal. We did good job.

Generaly speaking, USA is way ahead because of developmental system like some poster said it.

what about the size of the talent pool of basketball-first countries??

serbia has a population of 7 mil, lithuania 3mil, slovenia 2mil, greece 10mil...

even spain's 50 mil is a fraction of USA's 300 mil population...

now imagine a team that would include all the major balkan basketball nations (greece, serbia, montenegro, slovenia, croatia etc). I think that they would be able to compete against the US team

USA have the best basketball players in the world. But you have teams like the Philippines and Senegal making some huge improvements in the last few years.

Soccer still gets almost all the top athletes. Thing is there are plenty of big and tall athletes who play soccer but then get phased out because they are too big.

I'm not sure, but it's worth noting that a nontrivial portion of foreign players in the NBA didn't play with their national teams in this tournament.

they are. it's just that the talent is widely distributed through multiple countries. most countries will produce 1 or 2 nba players per year at most while the usa brings through at least 45-50 per year

[QUOTE=PAOK]what about the size of the talent pool of basketball-first countries??

serbia has a population of 7 mil, lithuania 3mil, slovenia 2mil, greece 10mil...

even spain's 50 mil is a fraction of USA's 300 mil population...

now imagine a team that would include all the major balkan basketball nations (greece, serbia, montenegro, slovenia, croatia etc). I think that they would be able to compete against the US team[/QUOTE]
Still would not have the athletic ability

Imagine if basketball was #1 sport in Africa and they had the American development system. Imagine all the 7-10 tribe people we'd get to see taking over the NBA.

I think the rest of the world [i]is[/i] getting better but I just do not believe they're coming along as quickly as a lot of people may have wanted us to believe in 2004. I think it was trendy to be a part of the Dream Team from 1992 through 1996. All the best players [i]wanted[/i] to participate. But slowly, players were less and less willing to be a part of the circus, particularly when avoiding criticism seemed virtually impossible (win by too many: you're rubbing it in, don't win by a lot: you're not playing as good as you should be).

Anyhow, as most of us know, the absolute best players began dropping out (Shaquille O'Neal was one of the first to part ways with Team USA). By '02 and '04, we had a relative shell of a team who more or less thought they'd be able to run out and win as if they were participating in scrimmages. When they came up short, I think some conclusions were sound (the world is improving) while others were not (USA will now struggle to win from now on).

Even in '96, there was wide spread belief that real deal competition was coming, but just not in the foreseeable future. [quote]The Yugoslavs--particularly Zarko Paspalj, a clever forward who
scored 19 points on 8-for-11 shooting, and hard-nosed point
guard Aleksandar Djordjevic (13 points and six assists)--were
gallant if overmatched opponents for the U.S. Their efforts
should signify that the rest of the world is creeping closer to
the Americans but not at a pace that should cause the U.S. any
immediate worry. "It took a long time for the rest of the world
to catch up to the U.S. college players, but it happened," says
Australian forward Andrew Gaze, who played at Seton Hall. "We'll
catch the American professionals, too. I just don't know if it
will be in my lifetime."[/quote]

That said, Lenny Wilkens unintentionally almost hit the nail on the head. [quote]Not everyone thinks the current system needs adjustment. Wilkens
believes that as the rest of the world improves and the current
older generation of NBA stars bows out of international
competition, the gap will close quickly. "Look at the players on
this team," he says. "Maybe three or four of them will be back
[in the Olympics] in four years--Grant, Penny, maybe Shaq. Add
to that the fact that players are coming into the NBA at younger
ages, before they've really got all the fundamental skills, and
you're going to have future Dream Teams that probably won't be
as accomplished as the ones that have played in 1992 and '96."
Adds Barkley in assessing the international talent level, "Ain't
no way a college team could beat those guys....I think they're
going to close the gap more and more. Maybe not the next
Olympics, but the one after that, we could be in trouble."[/quote][url]http://www.si.com/vault/1996/08/12/215893/slam-dunk-rarely-challenged-a-joyless-dream-team-cruised-to-the-gold-and-reemphasized-the-still-yawning-talent-gap-between-the-us-and-the-rest-of-the-world[/url]

[QUOTE=PAOK]what about the size of the talent pool of basketball-first countries??

serbia has a population of 7 mil, lithuania 3mil, slovenia 2mil, greece 10mil...

even spain's 50 mil is a fraction of USA's 300 mil population...[/QUOTE]


This


[QUOTE=Andrew Wiggins]they are. it's just that the talent is widely distributed through multiple countries. most countries will produce 1 or 2 nba players per year at most while the usa brings through at least 45-50 per year[/QUOTE]


and this.

all the good athletes are going to soccer.

and as some have mentioned, the US has a larger talent pool to draw from. i would imagine Euro all-stars vs the US team would be quite a game.

[QUOTE=mentallooser]Developmental systems. Other countries can't compete with ours. We rank our kids from very very early childhood. They compete nationally at a very young age, and they compete at a high level almost immediately.

Big schools and the USA program identify them early on and they compete for national rankings.

No one else has anything like this in basketball at the level we do.

Same reason we aren't on a higher level in soccer. We don't have the sort of developmental systems that other nations have.[/QUOTE]
this is partly true, similar to how soccer is in europe where the biggest club, barcelona, real madrid etc have teams since early childhood to train the most elite talent.

The international game used to be far more disparate to the NBA game than it is today. It was one of the reasons the NBA finally adopted SOME of the more loosened international defense rules.

Now that the two games are more closely linked with many of the same strategies implemented the US team is going to destroy the opposition. If that gap between the games continues to shrink it will absolutely be to the detriment of competitive balance (for instance if FIBA backs the 3 pt line to the NBA distance or disallows 3 seconds in the lane for defenders).

The easy answer is that it was a weak year, with many teams going without their stars...

But it's more complicated than that.

America's B team was arguably more dominant in 2014 than their A team in 2008. Spain had its best team ever on paper, and lost against a Parker-less, Noah-less France. France, the third best team in terms of NBA talent after Spain and the US, then proceeded to lost against Serbia, a team with no current NBA players. There are no simplistic explanations.

Still, a few factors to take into account to explain the results:

- a very cleverly built team USA: a plethora of sharpshooting guards (Irving, Curry, Thompson) supported by terrifying rebounders (Faried) and shotblockers (Davis) instead of ultra talented, but redundant iso loving, ball dominant swingmen. Previously it would have been all about the Rudy Gays in this group

-the win-or-go-home format, disproportionately rewarding hot and cold streaks from 3 point range

rest of the world needs to catch up in caring and drug use

[QUOTE=PAOK]what about the size of the talent pool of basketball-first countries??

serbia has a population of 7 mil, lithuania 3mil, slovenia 2mil, greece 10mil...

even spain's 50 mil is a fraction of USA's 300 mil population...

now imagine a team that would include all the major balkan basketball nations (greece, serbia, montenegro, slovenia, croatia etc). I think that they would be able to compete against the US team[/QUOTE]

Baltimore with 2.6 million produce better basketball players than any of your countries you mentioned.

[QUOTE=SpanishACB]rest of the world needs to catch up in caring and drug use[/QUOTE]

Yes we should eradicate those cartels from Mexico instead of spending time with terrorist.

And USA does not care about massacring all those hopeless Euros :oldlol: and winning it. We won't have any heroes welcome and dinner with the prime minister and King and call Rose 2x world champion.:oldlol:

those 2004 years, dudes were just f--king around, then they started getting serious, treating international competition like the playoffs instead of preseason or an all-star game. the whole attitude changed.

[QUOTE=mentallooser]Developmental systems. Other countries can't compete with ours. We rank our kids from very very early childhood. They compete nationally at a very young age, and they compete at a high level almost immediately.

Big schools and the USA program identify them early on and they compete for national rankings.

No one else has anything like this in basketball at the level we do.

Same reason we aren't on a higher level in soccer. We don't have the sort of developmental systems that other nations have.[/QUOTE]
I can't speak for foreign systems, my understanding is that they are just as good in skill development - or at very least shooting. When you read about some foreign players they started at 9 or 10 years of age which is about average. Anybody on any given day can go out and shoot a ball on a hoop all around the world. I ran into a scout in South Africa. And we never, hardly ever, hear of South African's ball players.

By contrast, there are 13 million people in the NY Metro area and there aren't that many soccer fields. And its hard to start a game up. And I imagine harder to get a great scout to come out.

People may not want to play the race card but id say african americans here are the most physically athletic people in the world. And if u subscribe to the they bred the most physically capable slaves theory...then of course it makes sense that less than a few generations later that genetic physical superiority exists.

China loves hoops. Ive visited etc. Probably way bigger of a pool of kids love hoops there by volume. However they are not genetically predisposed to having the athletic ability of most african americans.

Stuff like hand eye coordination is athleticism too. Any of you who think.steph curry isnt a top tier athlete are crazy. It is a genetic ability of how fast he can shoot...and even his dribble jukes are undeniably fast.

[QUOTE=PAOK]what about the size of the talent pool of basketball-first countries??

[B]serbia has a population of 7 mil, lithuania 3mil, slovenia 2mil, greece 10mil...

even spain's 50 mil is a fraction of USA's 300 mil population...[/B]

now imagine a team that would include all the major balkan basketball nations (greece, serbia, montenegro, slovenia, croatia etc). I think that they would be able to compete against the US team[/QUOTE]
And then 90% of that population want to be soccer players and play soccer as kids, not basketball.


Sorry to say but the world doesn't care about FIBA world cup, they care about FIFA world cup.

LMAO at the jingosim and trolling in this thread. I'll answer tho.

The US is a 300+ mil country with a tradition of grooming elite bball talent from early ages. About 30% of the elite athletic talent goes into basketball and with it a proportional amount of money.

You guys are comparing it to freaking slovenia 2mil, lithuania 3mil, and the like. That's like USA vs Oregon. Moreover even in these countries soccer is much more organized. Usually basketball gets about 7-10% of the elite athletic talent because soccer gets 80%+. The money percentage is also comparable but these countries are also significantly poorer than us.

In the big population countries like uk/germany/brazil/spain/italy soccer gets 95%+ of all the athletic talent and 99% of the money so that leaves them at levels that are comparable to slovenia/lithuania/serbia/greece.

If germany would invest 30% of their athletes&money in basketball they would produce enough be a tough match .. as would the french or the british. Just statistics.

In china/philippines the percentage of the athletically gifted population is low for basketball (height being the main concern). Also their money investments are really low compared to other big countries like us/uk/germany/france/etc ... so they produce alot less talent. This applies to soccer too as china only made it once to the world cup in its entire history.

People living under a rock :roll:

We barely have outdoor basketball courts available in a city of 500.000 people.

It's all about soccer over here

[QUOTE=sundizz]People may not want to play the race card but id say african americans here are the most physically athletic people in the world. And if u subscribe to the they bred the most physically capable slaves theory...then of course it makes sense that less than a few generations later that genetic physical superiority exists. [/quote]

This is partially right. However, an all white USA team would also be pretty good even though most likely they wouldn't have such an easy time raping all opposition.

[quote]
China loves hoops. Ive visited etc. Probably way bigger of a pool of kids love hoops there by volume. However they are not genetically predisposed to having the athletic ability of most african americans.[/quote]

this is mostly wrong. Chinese fathers want their kids to study and become engineers, anything worse is a complete failure. Sure they allow them to understake extra-scholar basketball and even be on a team, but they're also doing piano, table tennis, match club, chess club, etc etc...

[QUOTE=SpanishACB]This is partially right. However, an all white USA team would also be pretty good even though most likely they wouldn't have such an easy time raping all opposition.

[B]

this is mostly wrong. Chinese fathers want their kids to study and become engineers, anything worse is a complete failure. Sure they allow them to understake extra-scholar basketball and even be on a team, but they're also doing piano, table tennis, match club, chess club, etc etc...[/B][/QUOTE]

That's for 1st generation immigrants or Chinese-Americans, not Chinese in China :facepalm

[QUOTE=yarrak]Athleticism makes all the difference. All white USA team wouldn't be able to dominate like that at all. In fact, I doubt they would win against teams like Spain.

Natural athletic ability is something you can't teach.[/QUOTE]
Why would Team USA be rolling out strictly white players? This isn't the racial games, it's national teams.

And we don't dominate simply due to athleticism, we have better skill sets. The best players are Americans usually because of the combination of both athletic ability, and skill set.

Soccer "stealin" potential bball players is a lame esxcuse.Most soccer players are too short to have a good bball career.The tall ones are usually the center backs who are slow as fvck anyway so they wouldnt cut it for bball either.I mean,does anyone believe Iniesta or Xavi would make a good pro in bball?C mon

I wish the basketball set up in Australia was anything like the American version. The focus is just not as strong from an early age in schooling.