A sad day for USA basketball

[speedracer]

http://espn.go.com/nba/news/2002/0904/1427403.html

 

[bonoman]

Thats the best news i'ver heard all day!!!

 

[Niamh_Saoirse]

AHA! You didn't expect that from us little south american guys eh? Mwhahahahahahahahha lol

Yeah baby! we won! we fecking won!!!

Sorry I just had to say that! We consider it a wee bit of joy among all hte shite we are going through!

 

[pub crawler]

The article states that "many of the best American players declined to participate in this tournament." Interesting.

If it's the Olympics, then all the top NBA players come out (or used to). But they knew this tournament wouldn't garner much attention, so they didn't join the team. It wasn't a good enough marketing opportunity. Just goes to show what the whole "Dream Team" thing was all about. How perfectly lame.

Bravo Argentina!

 

[Foxxern]

Congrats to the Argentinians. Interesting that the US succeeded in World Cup, but now Argentina is succeeding at a previously American-dominated sport in basketball. They played a great game, and deserved the win. Considering the way we played in this tournament, it was only a matter of time.

 

[rafmed]

WOOOHOOO!!!

BRAVO ARGENTINA!!!

 

[pinkfloyd]

you can't win forever , even in baseball USA national team ( if there ever will be a World Cup , which i doubt ) will lose sooner or later , no big deal to me .

 

[bonoman]

And an even sader day for the americans they have been eliminated from the tourny by Yugoslavia

 

[The Wanderer]

pathetic, they should have just sent the Lakers over there, an actual TEAM would be a nice concept

 

[SweetOnU2]

pathetic, they should have just sent the Lakers over there, an actual TEAM would be a nice concept

@ Lakers!


But and on the lost! LOL

I just want Basketball season to start again.

 

[speedracer]

The article states that "many of the best American players declined to participate in this tournament." Interesting.

If it's the Olympics, then all the top NBA players come out (or used to). But they knew this tournament wouldn't garner much attention, so they didn't join the team. It wasn't a good enough marketing opportunity. Just goes to show what the whole "Dream Team" thing was all about. How perfectly lame.

Bravo Argentina!

The fact that the top NBA players don't always play in the Olympics sort of undercuts your argument about marketing.

A more salient reason that some top NBA players (not all of whom are American--Canada had zero NBA players on its roster) don't play in the World Championships and Olympics is because it adds about a month to their playing season. Should they be more excited to play for their country? Perhaps.

And the biggest reason that the US doesn't field the best team it can is because it chooses not to ask all of the best players to play.

(If you want to see examples of international competition being overshadowed by marketing, there's Michael Jordan wearing an American flag to cover up the Reebok logo on his warmups on the gold medal stand at Barcelona '92, and NBA players *not playing at all* in the '98 World Championships because of the lockout.)

 

[Rono]

And an even sader day for the americans they have been eliminated from the tourny by Yugoslavia

Did the US lose again ? Maybe the quality of the other teams is higher than before, a great thing for basketball in general.

 

[Niamh_Saoirse]

We made it to the final! We made it to the final! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

 

[The Wanderer]

lost again to Spain...

 

[bonoman]

Well my country sucked at the games but would have been a contender if they were ALLOWED to play. Steve Nash and Todd Macullgoh were not allowed to play, their teams would not release them for insurance purposes.