Olympic basketball is meant to be enjoyable. However proper now, I’m probably not having enjoyable.
It’s enjoyable fan-casting a dream crew of gamers for Workforce USA, as is questioning if Anthony Edwards or Devin Booker ought to begin or what the best massive rotation is. It’s a convention to listen to that Kawhi Leonard is just too injured to play, write articles about cryptic posts on social media about who bought snubbed, in the event that they’re mad about it, or in the event that they hate their teammates now and if it’s really Grant Hill’s fault.
It’s all in good enjoyable, however none of it’s about basketball. As a result of for USA Basketball, Olympic basketball isn’t about basketball. For the opposite 11 basketball groups on this match, it’s about basketball. However for this political celebration we name USA Basketball, profitable basketball video games has in some way turn into a second precedence behind the exhausting and unoriginal greater fish all of us in some way ended up frying: silly, invented and downright uninteresting narratives about Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid.
Not too long ago, on the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris, Tatum performed zero minutes within the crew’s first recreation in opposition to Serbia. Then, after head coach Steve Kerr obtained roughly seven trillion questions on it, Tatum began the next recreation in opposition to South Sudan, logging 4 factors and 17 minutes. In the meantime, Joel Embiid had roughly the inverse recreation log, beginning the Serbia recreation however touchdown a DNP in opposition to South Sudan. After the sport, Embiid was named a starter for the subsequent recreation in opposition to Puerto Rico.
Is that this severely what the Olympics are going to be about? Am I really going to should spend this complete lengthy march to a gold medal listening to about Tatum and Embiid’s worth prefer it’s mid-March in a standard NBA season? If this was really about profitable, then placing collectively a secure eight-man rotation can be priorities primary, two and three for Kerr and Co., and so they had ample time to take action.
As an alternative, they’ve elected to flip-flop round like a pair of Birkenstocks to attempt to soothe the calls for of indignant followers who need this man or that man or these two or that lineup to get kind of or no taking part in time. It’s chaos, and morphing into some sort of magnificence pageant to point out off the newest basketball developments within the USA one after the other. And this chicanery is inspired by the truth that they’re nonetheless going to win anyway as a result of they’re simply so significantly better.
Kerr claimed that the lineup modifications have been primarily based on “matchups,” a time period so obscure it may possibly cowl all method of sins. It’s attainable USA Basketball had crunched the numbers and tape, however one wonders precisely how subtle the matchup information was for Tatum not taking part in in opposition to Ognjen Dobric for Serbia however completely countering Nuni Omot for South Sudan.
Picture by Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE through Getty Photos
I’m not aware of all the main points, however normally, basketball groups don’t toss NBA champions and league MVPs across the rotation like they’re a type of Chinese language yo-yos getting hurled round a stage by your buddy Eric on the Fifth-grade expertise present. Typically, the end-of-the-bench guys are simply glad to be there, and in the event that they log zero minutes however fourteen sideline-towel-spins and 9 air-guitar shreds, that’s a strong day’s work.
However these gamers normally don’t find yourself beginning the subsequent recreation, and are additionally normally not named Jayson Tatum or Joel Embiid. These rotations simply look humorous, just because USA Basketball recruited a crew with approach too many good gamers and never sufficient minutes to play all of them. On a standard basketball crew, that might be all effectively and good, however having the “DNP – CD” tag go on Jayson Tatum simply doesn’t sit proper with anybody.
However we’ve to keep in mind that this crew isn’t about profitable, since that’s going to occur anyway. It’s about sending the fitting message, and it’s turning the Olympics right into a LeBron James-captained redemption arc for the failures of USA Basketball on the latest FIBA World Cup, after they unceremoniously misplaced to Germany.
These Olympics are about what James has given to the game, what Durant has given to USA Basketball and why Stephen Curry doesn’t have a gold medal but. There’s a lot else to select from, too: Kawhi Leonard dropped out. Jaylen Brown is tweeting the head-scratching emoji. Anthony Edwards may be Michael Jordan and Derrick White is a very nice man. Tatum is just like the ninth most attention-grabbing story on this crew, so it’s no marvel he’s not precisely the highest precedence to play.
For the USA Basketball crew, striving in the direction of “victory” is irrelevant, not compelling and due to this fact dangerous enterprise. Any final result apart from gold can be a nationwide embarrassment given the expertise mismatch, so reporters and media members focus extra on the rotations and on making up the explanation why a Tatum DNP issues in a recreation Workforce USA received by 26.
That is going to drive me insane. If we’re simply centered on profitable, then let’s drop these narratives about who performed and who didn’t when any mixture of 5 gamers on the roster will routinely be higher than the opposition and simply consider beating them.
If it’s really about these narratives, although, then I assume we’d higher proceed our evaluation of this non-issue and I’d higher proceed probably not having fun with Olympic basketball. However I’d reasonably not do this.
