Why is the United States so much better at basketball than the rest of the world?

Survival of the fittest is such a lie.

Americans just have a better work ethic towards becoming top ballers.

[QUOTE=LBJ 23]Not necessarily true. [B]Look at C. Ronaldo and Messi. One is 6'1 [/B]and one is 5'7 yet they are very close at the skills you point out.

It's the same thing as it is with Bolt, years ago people would tell you that you have to be small to be the fastest cuz taller people are clumsy. Look at Bolt now...[/QUOTE]

i guess that

[QUOTE=gabepizza][B]Okay but Greece actually lost to Nigeria. A team with a few more Euroleague all-stars would probably beat Nigeria but might still have trouble. They definitely would struggle against teams like Croatia and Angola and would not be even a top ten FIBA team.[/B] To think that they would actually pose a challenge to Team USA or even Team Spain is delusional beyond words.

But of course this would never happen because a Euroleague All-Star team would never play a national team. The closest to a Euroleague all-star team we got was team Greece with two Euroleague "all-stars" and 3 other Euroleague champions and they lost to Nigeria. I mean can you imagine a team with Lebron James, Dwight Howard and three other players who got significant playing time on the Miami Heat lose to Nigeria! lol[/QUOTE]

Again, you're trying to make rules out of single games. As a reminder, in the Olympic Tournament, the "awesome" Nigeria, apart from getting destroyed by the US, collapsed and almost lost to the weak Tunisia, lost hands-down to Lithuania, a team definitely weaker than an All-Euroleague team (after all, most of their players are playing in the EL, and not all of them are EL "all-stars"), easily lost to Argentina and played their only good game against France (and still lost).
Look at their roster:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria_national_basketball_team[/url]

That's 1 NBA guy, a couple of EL guys and all the others playing in leagues inferior to EL, and you're telling me an All-EL team would supposedly struggle to beat them?
Angola? [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angola_national_basketball_team[/url]
All their players except one play in the Angolan league, they have only 1 guy above 6'7 (the only one who doesn't play in Angola, LOL), I'd be surprised if they managed to even get 1-2 wins playing in the EL. Against All-EL, they'd get slaughtered.

[QUOTE=gabepizza]Euroleague all star team? You're joking right? A good match up would be a European all-star team vs Team USA but as we have seen a Euroleague all star team would have difficulty beating Nigeria! What "great" Euroleague players even made the Olympics? Only Juan Carlos Navarro and he was on a team with two NBA stars and a couple of other NBA players. I guess if you include AK-47 but he only played one year in Euroleague (winning league MVP and DPOY) before going back to being a role player in the NBA.

And yes the US is all lot better then the rest of the world. You mention their close games this summer. The point is they have gone through the past three global tournament without losing a game. Yes on a bad day they beat Lithuania by 5 and Spain by 7 but on a good day they beat France by 27, Argentina by 29 and Nigeria by 83! On a bad day Spain loses to Brazil and Greece loses to Nigeria...NIGERIA!!!!![/QUOTE]

You are just a stupid idiot.

[QUOTE=gabepizza]Well the Greek team that just lost to Nigeria had the Euroleague Final Four MVP (Spanoulis) and the player that the poster "Euroleague" claims is the best Euroleague center who was selected to all-Euroleague 1st team three years ago (Bourousis) plus 3 other members of the Euroleague champions. I know Euroleague champions are different from a Euroleague all-star team but still. So since a team with two all-star Euroleague players would lose to Nigeria it is not so far fetched to think a few more wouldn't make a difference. Krstic and Teodosic? They couldn't even reach the top 7 in Eurobasket together. McCalebb? Couldn't even lead his team past Dominican Republic. Who else? Lorbek? Batiste? Please. Diamantidis? Schortsanitis? Last time they played together with Spanoulis and Bourousis (hell that's almost a Euroleague all-star team there) they finished 11th in the World Championship behind Australia and Slovenia!

And I never made the comparisons saying since the US beat Nigeria by 83 and Greece lost to Nigeria by 1 the US would beat Greece by 84. I was simply replying to people who were pointing to the US only beating Lithuania by 5 and Spain by 7 by saying that was a bad day by them and they still won. Yet on a good say they beat the top teams by 25+ and can destroy lessor teams by 80+. While on a bad day by the other top national teams they could lose to teams as bad as Nigeria and even Spain, the 2nd best team in the world, lost to Russia and Brazil.[/QUOTE]

This individual is probably a psychopath. He is clearly not trolling, as he posts in a manner that shows he BELIEVES what he says, and that he is "analyzing" this.......

He shows not a complete ignorance (like the trolls do), but actually instead a total inability to form a single rational thought, use basic reasoning skills, or to form anything even remotely resembling a rational deduction or a logical thinking ability.

Every single personality characteristic of a psychopath is on display here.

[QUOTE=Rooster]Euroleague all star team.:oldlol:

What kind of joke is that.:facepalm

Especially when a definite scrub is so called the best player.:facepalm

It only took NBA has beens like the twilight version of Kirilenko and Krstic. :oldlol:

To expose what a sh1tty league that is.:cheers:

[B]Nate Huffman Euroleague MVP

Joseph Blair MVP[/B]

Anthony Parker 2 MVPs [B]3 Euroleague title[/B]

33 Americans has been named to All Euroleague team

Obscure players ranging from scrubs to NBA rejects.

Sh1tty league indeed[/QUOTE]

False myths created by liars like you on ISH forum. False myths that have been debunked here about 100 times already.

[QUOTE=baller562]African Americans are genetically more athletic than ANY other race... there is simply no denying this fact! Basketball requires more athleticism than most sports, similar to football. We have the most athletic players in the world... the combination of speed, height, length, all these traits... this is why we consistently have the best basketball players. Add to the fact the we have the best basketball youth system all the way to college, and then the best pro league... it's a no brainer we have the best basketball played here in the states.

As to why African Americans in the US are athletically similar, after hearing several theories, I would have to agree that genetics played the most part. Its simply about the survival of the fittest... only the strongest people survived the brutal journey across the Atlantic. The weak starved and died off, while the strong made the journey. Even during the slave auctions, only the strong were selected and sold. With this cycle continuing, we have a group of genetically stronger people. Is it also true that Blacks have a higher testosterone level than other races? I'm not sure where I read that...[/QUOTE]

So if what you claim is true, then that explains why they also have lower IQs than other races. Because only the dumbest of the very dumbest were stupid enough to fight to survive to live as a slave for the rest of their lives.

Oh wait...you are talking about "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest".....but wait a minute, that implies that the "genetically best and most superior" survived............

But, the dumbest of the dumbest of the dumbest are actually at the lowest end of the genetic scale.

[B]Oh, and of course, a DNA study done by Harvard actually found that 50% of black NBA players descend directly from a WHITE MAN in the USA.[/B]

You and everyone else here that claims this total bullshit are both racist and freaking retarded.

[QUOTE=gabepizza]Okay but Greece actually lost to Nigeria. A team with a few more Euroleague all-stars would probably beat Nigeria but might still have trouble. They definitely would struggle against teams like Croatia and Angola and would not be even a top ten FIBA team. To think that they would actually pose a challenge to Team USA or even Team Spain is delusional beyond words.

But of course this would never happen because a Euroleague All-Star team would never play a national team. The closest to a Euroleague all-star team we got was team Greece with two Euroleague "all-stars" and 3 other Euroleague champions and they lost to Nigeria. I mean can you imagine a team with Lebron James, Dwight Howard and three other players who got significant playing time on the Miami Heat lose to Nigeria! lol[/QUOTE]

Your level of stupidity is disturbing.

To put it as simple as possible: When growing up as kids, all the way from kindergarden to college, Europeans play soccer. Americans play basketball.

In addition to this, the obvious genetic differences aren't exactly working in the Europeans favor either. Combined, this makes USA the vastly superior side.

First we're a big f**king country.

Secondly we def got, on average, more athletic players (especially against Europeans).

But also, even our best ball players throughout history with average athleticism or so, are better than the best foreigner players with comparable athleticism.


Call it devotion or playing many times a week since a really young age, call it what you want but it's just how it is.

[QUOTE=dannywpt]To put it as simple as possible: When growing up as kids, all the way from kindergarden to college, Europeans play soccer. Americans play basketball.

In addition to this, the obvious genetic differences aren't exactly working in the Europeans favor either. Combined, this makes USA the vastly superior side.[/QUOTE]

Yeah

No european player comes close to a guy like Bird and that ain't certainly due to athleticism, so what you mention first also plays a huge part.

The simple answer is wealth I think. In a lot of poor countries you might not ever see a basketball net. You kind of can't play basketball without a net, so that could be a potential answer. I would think this is why you don't see too many South American players except from Brazil.

Another factor would be population. If for example 1/100 people has the body/athletecism/interest/skills to be an NBA player, and we say that 1/100 of those players actually make it through to the NBA then it would stand to reason that the US's 300 + million people would produce more NBA players than Canada's 30 million people.

The last big factor that I can think of is that in certain countrys there are more popular sports. In Canada there is hockey, in Europe there is soccer/rugby, and in some African countries they throw sticks at dead bodies.

ish is allergic to the truth, why even try to have real conversations here?

[QUOTE=Euroleague]Team USA can beat Spain, Lithuania, Russia, but it could NOT beat a unified European team, such as a Euroleague all star team.

You are an even bigger moron than the racist Afro supremacists are. Because they say the things they do out of racism. You are evidently saying them out of simply being a freaking dumb ass.[/QUOTE]

What would the Euroleague All-Star team look like?

You can definitively say that team for sure beat team USA? What if team USA had a healthy Wade, Howard, and Rose in place of Davis, Harden, and Iguadola?

[QUOTE=get these NETS]ish is allergic to the truth, why even try to have real conversations here?[/QUOTE]

What truth? I'm afraid to the people who think they own the truth. Say your "truth", and and I will give you my opinion. People who speak the "truth" do not respect other opinions normally.