Matt Castillo
Team USA Basketball is supposed to be the most dominant team in the world, but they haven’t looked that dominating based on their first two exhibition matches.
They fell to Nigeria in their first match by the final score of 90-87, and then followed that up by losing to Australia 91-83. To make matters worst Bradley Beal tested positive with Covid-19, which will keep him out of the Olympic games.
With team USA struggling right before the games it can’t help but make many ask what is wrong with Team USA? But the truth is there is no reason to panic yet, despite what certain analysts on the national networks try to tell you. Yes, they loss back-to-back games but at the end of the day, they are the warm-up games that don’t count.
Now, the United States shouldn’t be losing these games, I get that, but at the same time, other countries are getting better and producing players that are playing in the NBA. Again, still no excuse to be losing these games but the competition is getting better.
Another thing to factor in is that team USA like always is a team filled with Superstars, which means on their NBA team they are the Alpha dog. The ball is always in their hands, and now they are playing with other guys that are used to always having the ball, so its something that most of the players are having to adjust to, as well as trying to figure out how to play with one another and sometimes that takes time.
The only problem with that is Team USA doesn’t have that much time, so that is something these players will have to adjust to much faster than normal as the Olympics games are a week away.
I also feel the roster is lacking the size of physical big men. The international or FIBA style of play is more physical than what we see in the NBA so having a big physical threat is a need and the only guy on the roster that is a physical presence is Bam Adebayo. He has had foul trouble in the first few games causing him to have to sit and then the other teams have been able to dominate on the glass.
To me I don’t understand why Kevin Love is on the roster at this point in his career, I know he is a guy that is known for being able to stretch the floor by hitting three’s and has had a great career of securing rebounds, but he isn’t anywhere near the same player that he once was. I don’t understand why Zion Williamson or Julius Randle isn’t on this roster as I believe they would both provide the physical play that is needed.
Overall, I feel the US team will be fine when the Olympics games start, They will be getting Devin Booker and Khris Middleton once the NBA finals are done, which both of the guys will add even more scoring to the roster. I think they will get stronger and stronger as the tournament goes on and everyone will forget about the rough start they had before the games.
