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In the 2024 Olympics, Australia, Canada and France — the rosters outside the U.S. that boast the most NBA talent — are respectively starting Patty Mills, Dwight Powell and Evan Fournier, none of whom could crack a playoff rotation. Fournier came off the bench for the Detroit Pistons. He and Mills are unsigned.
Meanwhile the media is manufacturing controversies about whether the Americans even need either of the two best players on the NBA’s reigning champions. Team USA executive Grant Hill did not select Jaylen Brown, and head coach Steve Kerr did not play Jayson Tatum in their win over Serbia in pool play.
Team USA features perennial All-Stars Anthony Davis and Bam Adebayo at center and felt the need to recruit 2023 NBA MVP Joel Embiid, a Cameroon native who holds citizenship in both the U.S. and France. And Team USA does not even need Embiid opposite the only center alive better than him, Serbia’s Nikola Jokić, who played the U.S. to a standstill in his 31 minutes and still lost his Olympic opener by 26 points.
Team USA’s roster is loaded with NBA All-Stars. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Embiid did not play in another pool-play blowout (of South Sudan) on Wednesday, when Tatum started in place of Boston Celtics teammate Jrue Holiday, cycling a few more controversies through the media mill.
“The NBA is so popular worldwide,” Kerr told reporters in Paris. “The regular season is kind of a soap opera, and we understand that. Social media takes over, and everything becomes so dramatic. … I don’t read social media. I would hope that our guys aren’t paying too much attention to that. That’s a regular-season thing, where the soap opera can carry the ratings, but here it’s just: win a damn gold medal.”
These are our problems, which means we have none, and that diminishes Olympic basketball intrigue.
Be honest: When France and 7-foot-3 Victor Wembanyama took to the floor against Japan and 5-6 Yuki Togashi, for whom were you rooting? The U.S. might as well be two feet taller than the rest of the world.
This is not a fair fight. Rooting for USA Basketball is taking Goliath’s side.
Tatum, one of the five best…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/2024-paris-olympics-team-usas-embarrassment-of-riches-diminishes-basketball-intrigue-142728361.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-08-02 14:27:28
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