<$BlogRSDURL$>

 

Preposterous Universe

Sunday, August 29, 2004
 
USA Basketball

I remember, back in 1992 when the Dream Team of NBA stars first participated in the Olympics, someone telling me with a straight face that the US would never lose a basketball game in international competition again. Why not? Because basketball is a black person's sport, and the Europeans and South Americans just couldn't compete athletically.

Someone forgot to tell the Argentinians and Italians, as the former beat the latter for the gold medal yesterday. The US managed to squeak by a small former Soviet republic to claim the bronze. The team played hard, but was under-prepared and put together badly for this kind of competition, with a bunch of swingmen who can drive to the basket and a significant lack of big men and outside shooters.

Who comes out of the fiasco looking the best, from the US side? None other than poster boy for selfishness Allen Iverson.

To the Shaqs and Garnetts and T-Macs and Ray Allens who had better things to do than protect their homegrown game, Iverson said: "They have to understand that, first and foremost, it's an honor to be selected on this team. It's something that you should cherish for the rest of your life, and honestly, it's something I will cherish without winning the gold medal.

"I feel good about taking part in something like this. I feel like a special basketball player to be selected to a team like this."

To his former coach in Philly, Brown, who complained about the only-in-America rush job needed to field an Olympic team when he wasn't busy ripping his players and the USA Basketball selection committee that picked them, Iverson said: "I don't want to make (the rush job) an excuse. I think the time that we had, it was already known that that's how much time we were going to have. And we had to understand from the first day that that was the amount of time we had to prepare."

Like Lindsay, I don't really care that much about the Olympics. But it was sad to hear that the US team went from being worshipped a decade ago to being booed off the court this year. Of course, that might have something to do with issues other than basketball.

 
Ideas on culture, science, politics.
Sean Carroll


Preposterous Home
Atom Site Feed (xml)
RSS Feed
Technorati Profile
Bloglines Citations
Blogroll Me

Elsewhere
3quarksdaily
About Last Night
Alas, a Blog
The American Sector
apostropher
applecidercheesefudge
archy
Asymmetrical Information
Big Brass Blog
Bitch, Ph.D.
Blondesense
BlogBites
Body and Soul
Brad DeLong
Chris C Mooney
Collision Detection
Creek Running North
Crescat Sententia
Crooked Timber
Daily Kos
Daniel Drezner
Decembrist
Deepen the Mystery
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Dynamics of Cats
Electron Blue
Eschaton
Explananda
Ezra Klein
Fafblog
Feministe
The Fulcrum
Girls Are Pretty
Grammar.police
Jacques Distler
James Wolcott
John and Belle
Julie Saltman
Lawyers, Guns and Money
Leiter Reports
locussolus
The Loom
Majikthise
Matt McIrvin
Matthew Yglesias
Michael Bérubé
Michael Nielsen
Mixing Memory
Mr. Sun
Not Even Wrong
Obsidian Wings
Orange Quark
Paige's Page
Pandagon
Panda's Thumb
Pharyngula
Playing School, Irreverently
Political Animal
The Poor Man
Quantum Diaries
Quark Soup
Real Climate
Rhosgobel
Roger Ailes
Rox Populi
Shakespeare's Sister
Simple Stories
Sisyphus Shrugged
Smijer & Buck
TPM Cafe
TigerHawk
uggabugga
Uncertain Principles
Unfogged
Volokh Conspiracy
Wonkette


Powered by Blogger
Comments by Haloscan
RSS Feed by 2RSS.com


Archives
February 2004
March 2004
April 2004
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005