USA Men's Basketball Fails Again!

If you remember, two years ago I wrote this about the 2004 men's olympic basketball team. It was a scathing piece, maybe a diatribe even, and I fully expected USA Basketball to listen to me, make changes, and never lose a game again. Boy, was I wrong.

What I failed to note in my previous column was the USA's total and complete inability to play the pick-and-roll on either side of the ball. The headline may read "USA loses because they can't shoot three-pointers," but that's wrong. The real reason they lost is that little Greek guy, who kept driving the lane for easy layups or dishing out to some lame white guys for easy threes. That's besides the pick-and-roll of course, which was killing the US all game. Maybe those guys should learn fundamentals in dunking school. Hey, isn't that why they hire Coach K from Duke? He's the fundamental king! As always, Duke proves to be good for nothing.

Will the US ever learn to play defense? Will they ever learn to shoot? Will they ever play with urgency? Will the NBA ever come back to being real basketball?

No.