United States Men's National Basketball team

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MrFedEx503

MrFedEx503

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#1
Team USA: Who's in, who's out?

By J.E. Skeets

Team USA managing director Jerry Colangelo and head coach Mike Krzyzewski recently told reporters that the 12-man roster for the Beijing Olympics will be announced on Monday. But who can wait for Monday? That's like three days from now! Using leaks, rumors and a little common sense, let's handicap who's likely in and out:

"Guaranteed" China bound:

Carmelo Anthony — Post: "USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo confirmed the selection of Anthony, who will be appearing on his second straight Olympic squad. ... "In the last year, I thought he took a half-step back," Colangelo told the newspaper. "I have no idea why, but obviously, I've read the reports about how he might be traded and about some of the little things that have gone on. But there's a lot of stuff I'm not (privy) to."

Jason Kidd — Chicago Tribune: "Jason Kidd said Wednesday he's looking forward to playing in Beijing even if it does cut into his golf game. ... "I'm not supposed to say anything, but I'm looking forward to participating," said the Mavericks point guard, who started on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team."

Chris Paul — The Time Picayune: "(CP3) learned this week he will be one of the 12 members of the U.S. Olympic basketball team, sources close to the player said Thursday. This will be Paul's first Olympic experience. He helped lead Team USA to an 8-1 record and bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan."

Tayshaun Prince — mLive: "Two league sources confirmed on Thursday that Prince will be among the players chosen to represent the United States' men's basketball team ... "A guy like Tayshaun Prince, with his length, smarts, and his ability to guard four positions, is as valuable as a scorer," Colangelo told the Boston Globe. "We're going to stay true to what we said. It's not an all-star team. It's a team of different components."

Dwyane Wade — Miami Herald: "Dwyane Wade will have the support of the Heat when he begins his quest for Olympic gold next week at Team USA minicamp in Las Vegas. A source close to Wade said Thursday he will be on the 12-man roster."

Michael Redd — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Olympic and National Basketball Association sources have confirmed that Redd will be named to the 12-man roster for the Beijing Olympics. ... Redd earned his Olympic spot with a stellar performance last summer in the FIBA Americas tournament in Las Vegas, as the U.S. team qualified for the 2008 Games. Redd came off the bench to average 14.0 points, the fourth-highest mark on the team, and he shot 53%, including 45.3% from three-point range."

Have said no:

Amare Stoudemire — Arizona Republic: "Amaré has pulled himself out of consideration for the roster and that's predicated on, despite the fact that he's had an injury-free year coming back (from knee surgeries in 2005 and 2006), he's a little hesitant on pushing the envelope too hard," Colangelo said."

Chauncey Billups — ESPN: "Chauncey Billups will not play for Team USA in the Beijing Olympics due to family reasons ... "It’s a matter of what you want to do and what you need to do," Billups told ESPN. "Winning a gold medal is the one thing that I haven’t accomplished, and I was looking forward to standing up on that big stage. That’s what I really wanted. But I was taught family comes first, above anything else."

Paul Pierce — Boston Globe: "Despite how well Paul Pierce has played in the NBA Finals, USA Basketball reiterated that it isn't going to add him to its Beijing Olympics team, managing director Jerry Colangelo said yesterday. Pierce was among the long list of core potential players originally named in 2005. But since he didn't participate the past two years because of injuries, he won't be asked to wear red, white, and blue this summer."

So, who does that leave?

Well, a lot. Possible candidates include: Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Joe Johnson, Tyson Chandler, Chris Bosh, Carlos Boozer, Mike Miller, Deron Williams, Brad Miller, Luke Ridnour, Antawn Jamison, JJ Redick, Shawn Marion, Elton Brand, Lamar Odom, Shane Battier, Bruce Bowen, Gilbert Arenas, and Adam Morrison.

From that MVP-to-mustache list, it'd be hard to imagine Kobe, Dwight and LeBron not making the roster. In fact, it'd be impossible to imagine. They're in. So that brings us up to nine guys, with just three spots left.

Of the remaining 18 names, I think Colangelo will pick Bosh and the two Jazzies — Deron and Boozer. Billups withdrawal opens the door up for that third, physical point guard, while Bosh and Boozer help in the size department. Also, their ability to operate in low-post sets when the game slows down could be key.

But what do you think? What would your 12-man roster look like?

Related: Adam Morrison, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Carlos Boozer, Tayshaun Prince, Amare Stoudemire, Gilbert Arenas, Tyson Chandler, Shane Battier, Mike Miller, Lamar Odom, Paul Pierce, Bruce Bowen, Chauncey Billups, Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ba...o-s-in-who-s-out-?urn=nba,89351&cp=6#comments

Ahhhh USA basketball, when you can have no problem cheering on players you absolutely can't stand... It's a beautiful thing.


I think the roster should be.
1 - Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Jason Kidd
2 - Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Micheal Redd
3 - Lebron James, Carmello Anthony,Tyshawn Prince
4 - Kevin Garnett, Carlos boozer
5 - Dwight Howard

and Tyson chandler will probably be on the roster along with Battier, so i dunno who you take off, we will see the whole list on Monday
 
REdRUM

REdRUM

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#3
Aug 12, 2002
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#3
Shitty list, FedEx...

They need bigs; they were outclassed by the bigs of other countries (Greece, for example) in previous years.

(I was joking about the ''shitty'' part; it's not far off, IMO)

I'd take Bosh or Chandler over Prince for a run at the gold.
 
REdRUM

REdRUM

Sicc OG
#4
Aug 12, 2002
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#4
Three bigs.


That's it.


When the United States tries to win the gold medal in Beijing this summer, it appears it will try to do it with only three true power forwards and centers -- Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer.


The opinion here?

This is a mistake with the potential to go down as the singular example of the hubris of Mike Krzyzewski and Jerry Colangelo's leadership of Team USA.


Reports surfaced Friday that Tayshaun Prince had been picked for the final spot on Team USA's 12-man roster, which means the coaching staff, executive committee and scouts voted not to bring along Tyson Chandler, deciding instead to go with versatility over size for the final roster spot.


Howard, Boozer and Bosh will be the three true bigs on a roster also expected to include Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Michael Redd and Prince.


Howard is expected to start at center, with Anthony at power forward, James at small forward, Bryant at shooting guard and Kidd at point guard.


The team will be formally announced Monday at a news conference in Chicago.


In recent months, the overall roster of 33 had been trimmed to 15 viable candidates, and Chauncey Billups and Amare Stoudemire withdrew their names from consideration in the past few days. That left Colangelo, USA Basketball's managing director, and Krzyzewski, the head coach, in charge of deciding whether to bring an additional big man. After they polled the assistant coaches (Mike D'Antoni, Nate McMillan, Jim Boeheim) and scouts and examining the draw and the opposing rosters, the perceived need for an additional interchangeable part won out.


The 12-man roster will be submitted to the USOC on July 1. There will also be six alternates named, although it is difficult to make changes after July 1 unless there is a verifiable injury to one of the 12 players (which is part of the reason why Larry Brown was unable to throw Stephon Marbury off the Athens team just a week before the 2004 Olympics).



The danger in taking only three big men is obvious: Foul trouble and/or injuries would leave the Americans vulnerable under the boards against any opponent with size, even though Team USA's plan calls for Anthony to get the bulk of the minutes at the 4 spot.


Think about it: If you are the coach of Upper Moldovistan and you need to devise a plan to defeat Goliath, you open your Coaching 101 textbook and decide to send two 7-footers to the offensive boards every possession while having the three other players drop back to defend against the fast break. The second thing you tell your 7-footers is to draw fouls against Howard, Boozer and Bosh, even if it calls for flopping. If you can make offensive rebounding and second-chance points the key statistics, half the battle is already won.


When Team USA lost to Greece in the semifinals of the 2006 World Championship in Japan, the Greeks' size and girth were huge factors. The Americans had trouble defending Greece's high pick-and-roll, on which the picker was continually able to get himself matched against a far smaller defender and then attack the basket before a help defender could arrive. And when the help came too early, someone was left open at the 3-point line.


Another point: FIBA basketball tends to be far more physical than NBA basketball, although the Americans historically tend to run into the arbitrary referee who chooses to call things tight in the paint. (Tim Duncan watched much of the 2004 Olympics from the bench in Athens for this very reason.)


FIBA rules also call for players to be disqualified after their fifth foul (rather than their sixth, as is the case in the NBA), and technical fouls count against a player's personal foul limit. (Memo to Howard: If you don't agree with that third foul you'll draw in the first quarter against Russia-Lithuania-Spain-Argentina, keep your mouth shut. If you don't, it'll be your fourth.)


You're supposed to protect yourself against those potential troubles through depth, but the Americans aren't.


Four years ago, the Americans didn't send any pure shooters to Athens, so everyone played 40 minutes of zone against them, and they lost three times.


The members of Team USA's brain trust made it easy then for the rest of the world to devise a defensive game plan, and they're doing it again by being too biased toward trying to impose their will and exploit their advantages in speed and athleticism.


That "we're going to beat you our way, not your way" attitude will work fine against the likes of China and Angola, but the risk will come in the final three single-elimination games against opponents poised, talented and tall enough to turn their match against the United States into a grind-it-out, half-court battle of brawn.


Here's the dirty little secret about Olympic basketball: The first round doesn't matter. There are six teams in each group, only four of the 12 are eliminated, and what's of paramount importance is where your energy and health levels are going into the final five days.


You want to peak at the end, not the beginning.


The Americans' first-round opponents in Beijing are China, Angola, Spain and two other teams who will emerge from a pre-Olympic qualifier to be held in Athens next month. Four of the teams with the most size -- Russia, Lithuania, Spain and Australia -- are on the other side of the draw, as is reigning Olympic champion Argentina, along with a third team to be determined in the pre-Olympic qualifier.


The tournament format switches to single elimination in the quarterfinals, when the Americans (assuming they finish first in Group B) will play the fourth-place finisher from Group A on Aug. 20. The semifinals take place two days later, and the gold- and bronze-medal matches come on the final afternoon of the Olympics, Aug. 24.


The Americans expect to be playing in that final match, and there's no doubt they have the talent to get there.


But do they have enough size? Are the Gasol and the Lavrinovic brothers; the Russian front line of Andrei Kirilenko, Aleksey Savrasenko and Nikita Morgunov; the Andrew Boguts and Luis Scolas of the world -- are they licking their chops?


Two months from now, Tyson Chandler will be sitting on his easy chair with the rest of America, and we'll all know for sure whether Team USA's gold-medal drought will extend past its current eight-year run.


And maybe, just maybe, we'll look back on these late days of June as the time when the gold-medal decision was ultimately, erroneously made.

Chris Sheridan is an ESPN.com Insider. He has covered the U.S. senior national team since the 1996 Olympics.
 
REdRUM

REdRUM

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#11
Aug 12, 2002
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#11
CHICAGO -- MVP Kobe Bryant will be heading to his first Olympics, and he'll have LeBron James and Dwyane Wade with him.

They will lead a U.S. Olympic basketball team that was announced Monday -- one that hopes to capture the gold medal in Beijing in August after a third-place showing in Athens four years ago. They'll have plenty of help.

Carmelo Anthony and Jason Kidd were among the 12 players placed on the squad. They were joined by Tayshaun Prince, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Michael Redd and Deron Williams.

"It was a very difficult selection process," said Jerry Colangelo, USA Basketball managing director. "When you have as many outstanding players as we do -- to select a group of 12 is going to leave out some outstanding people."

The team was selected without a tryout. It will have a minicamp this week in Las Vegas and reconvene there July 20-25 to train and play an exhibition against Canada before heading overseas.

The Americans open Olympic play against China on Aug. 10.

Although the Americans captured the gold at the Sydney Games in 2000, they no longer dominate international play as they once did. The talent gap has narrowed and many top NBA players have chosen to not play for the national team in recent years.

Now, the U.S. will field a team that appears loaded. Then again, the Americans went 5-3 in Athens and lost for the first time since NBA players started competing in 1992, even though they had James, Anthony, Wade and Tim Duncan. That group got routed by Puerto Rico before losing to Lithuania and Argentina, but this one is confident it will take the gold.

"It's really the world's game," coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We think we're the best at playing that game."

Bryant just won his first MVP and led the Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA Finals. James averaged 30.0 points -- just enough to beat Bryant for the scoring title.

Those two, along with Anthony, Kidd and Dwight Howard, started for a team that went unbeaten in the Olympic qualifying tournament last year.

Phoenix forward Amare Stoudemire withdrew from Olympic consideration, apparently concerned about pushing his body too hard after knee surgery in 2005 and 2006. So did Detroit's Chauncey Billups, who would have had a tough time making the team, given the depth in the backcourt.

Wade cemented his spot after U.S. Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo watched him work out in Chicago recently. Wade has had chronic soreness in his left knee since undergoing surgery in 2007, and his season ended in March.

Wade started working out in Chicago in May, and James and Paul joined him to help sharpen his game. Colangelo paid a visit and left convinced the 6-foot-4 guard was healthy.Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
 
I

IronLungs420

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Jan 12, 2006
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MrFedEx503 said:
Named to the 2008 USA Basketball Senior National Team were: Carmelo Anthony (Denver Nuggets); Carlos Boozer (Utah Jazz); Chris Bosh (Toronto Raptors); Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers); Dwight Howard (Orlando Magic); LeBron James (Cleveland Cavaliers); Kidd; Chris Paul (New Orleans Hornets); Tayshaun Prince (Detroit Pistons); Michael Redd (Milwaukee Bucks); Dwyane Wade (Miami Heat); and Deron Williams (Utah Jazz).
Click to expand...
not one celtic. good shit!
 
REdRUM

REdRUM

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Aug 12, 2002
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I Fucked Your Mom said:
Not sure, but considering the other "candidates", i would think that Kevin would be a fromidable choice (ie, Adam Morrison...i mean, really?).
Click to expand...
I agree, if we're talking about Morrison...but as for the 12 man roster, I don't see picking him over any of the players selected. He probably wouldn't be in the top 20, but definately over Morrison, Ridnour, Reddick, etc.
 
MrFedEx503

MrFedEx503

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Sep 4, 2002
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Brandon Roy needs to be on this team..... he's great at playing with high caliber all stars I.E. 2008 All star game

this team needs role players, or players that know how to take a back seat in order for the team to win
 
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