Yeah I agree on Anthony, I don’t get that guy, seems like the coaching staff loves him because he scores a lot of points, but at what cost? I don’t see why you need him when you have Wade, James and Bryant. I’d rather have Ray Allen, any kind of spot-up shooter (disclaimer: I’m not so big on Redd). Maybe Blake Ahearn is available?

Chris Mannix at SI.com (he of the “harsh words for Love”) picked the U.S. to win bronze behind Argentina and Spain. I don’t know about that…then again, he had the Cs winning the championship all the way, even when they were 2-2 against Atlanta. In any case this figures to be the most interesting tournament (for the U.S. at least) in years…I’ll definitely be watching.

Also been thinking that ‘Melo is one of the more overrated players in the NBA. Not that I don’t like him, he’s just overrated.

For the rest, don’t think you can get too much out of exhibition games. It’s a lot of tactics. Not showing all the cards in your hand, trying something unorthodox just to see what happens, etc…

Good article though ;)

This isn’t Team USA, this is Team Nike. It’s never been about country or flag waving; rather, making sure the company’s best and brightest faces get more global coverage. I’m sure Nike is overjoyed that one of the biggest subjects among the players is the possibility that a Euro team (more global coverage) could offer someone like Kobe $40-50 mil to leave the NBA.

The 2nd biggest joke (behind the fact that this is a shoe company’s team) is that this year’s team has been put together any differently than teams in the past 8 years. Jerry Colangelo practically goes down on himself in Nike’s series of videos on the team by telling everyone what a wonderful vision he had by developing a 3 year plan that would rid the US of A of guys like Starbury while filling the squad with role players, 3 point shooters, and guys who just wanted to win for their country. (BTW: the funniest part of the video is to watch master motivator Coach K-another Nike trademark“coach”; do you think Colangelo looked at guys with Adidas contracts?) Anywho, Colangelo has done such a wonderful job that Melo is the team’s starting power forward and Howard/Bosh are the centers. 8 of the guys on the team led their teams in scoring and while he did manage to pick the 2 best point guards, he also took one of the worst: the broken down Jason Kidd , who, funny, is signed by Nike.

Look, I get that the Olympics haven’t been about anything but money for a while, but this team takes it to a nauseating extreme with the Nike stuff. I could have swallowed it if there wasn’t all this redemption crap that tries to paint the team’s approach as anything other than it’s always been: overwhelm them with blue chip talent. Is it any wonder why Coach K was chosen to lead this sort of team? Hooray, we’ve Dukified our national team.

I think Spain will beat them. If there is such a thing as karma, Ricky Rubio will get in the game against Kidd, go nuts, get drafted high, and sign with Adidas.

How high do you think he’s rated? His teams are usually pretty competitive and he puts up big numbers across the board. I don’t think fans consider him one of the best two or three forwards in the league, but he certainly deserves to be in the discussion for All-Star teams. I’d rather have him than Paul Pierce, and so would most other fans before Pierce’s hot playoffs.

He’s a great international player because he’s got the size and athleticism of most of the American stars, but with an automatic catch & shoot game. He’s a better defender than Redd and is more versatile than most of the NBA shooters left off the team, like Mike Miller and Ray Allen. I disagree with many of Fran Fraschilla’s commentary (he wants to credit Europe with every basketball idea short of the bounce pass) but he’s right that Melo will be one of the best players in these Olympics. His game is built for it.

and should rebuild. I don’t know what assets they have, other than Melo and Iverson, but they should get younger and get draft picks, because the current group will struggle to make the playoffs and will only get worse as Iverson gets older.

The “who would you build around?” discussion is an interesting one, and I wouldn’t put Melo in the Top 10 in the league. However, he’s an All-Star scorer and with a great big man, could probably contend for a championship.

...Wade has the ring but he did it in Shaq’s last somewhat dominant season and he was able to do so because the Mavs suddenly stopped getting calls and he shot something like 60 free throws in Miami’s wins. Wade definitely has injury issues and he can’t shoot for shit from the outside so it remains to be seen how he could perform with no inside presence and balanced officiating. That being said, he completely dominated those Finals. He’s spectacular in an open court setting and with a wide lane (again, removing the importance of big fellas like Shaq), he’s quite the performer.

That being said, he comes with some pretty big negatives. He’s not going to run the point for you and he’s a liability on defense. He can’t shoot all that well and a large part of his game involves getting calls from the refs. There’s also the question of how much longer he can keep the bowling ball style up.

As far as the Wolves go, I’d take Melo in a second over Wade.

...and that’s not a compliment. I think he’s mostly a chucker and has too poor of an attitude to be the most talented player on a championship team.

So did Tony Parker and Paul Pierce, but you’re right that Wade was probably the best player on that Heat team. Kobe was coming into his prime when LA won their last one, but I’d still say Shaq was their best player.

But by showing how few players ever actually become the “most talented player on a championship team” I think it highlights how overstated the phrase “he’s a player you can build around” is. You can truly build around Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, or LeBron James. The list doesn’t extend much further than that, and even those guys can’t win titles by themselves (although Duncan’s first two titles were with relatively average supporting groups.) Carmelo is not in that company and nobody would argue that he is. However, he does a lot of things on offense that only a short list of players can match and he could easily end up on a team that contends for, or wins, a title.