After-the-fact USA Olympic Basketball Qualifying Thread

[svosen]

Anybody watch any games? I really wanted to watch several, but I ended up watching only about 1/2 of the US's semi-final qualifying game. Can't even recall who they played now, for crying out loud.

I was thinking they looked a little rough, honestly. It wasn't so much that they were playing great; more that the competition was playing on a lower level. I kept thinking, "Man, they better get their crap together, or they're gonna lose this thing," only to look down and see the lead had actually increased.

Will be interested to see who's on the team for summer '08 in Bejing. Hopefully they get a good PG backup for Kidd. Also would be good to get a center that plays well. I was a little disappointed in Amare, truthfully.

Speaking of Kidd, I've changed my opinion from last February. The Lakers should have traded Bynum for him. At the time, I would have called for Kupchak's tarring/feathering had he made that trade. In retrospect, I'm thinking it would have been a good trade. C'est le vie.

[Cowboy22]

I didn't watch a whole ton of it because I could never remember when the games were on, but when I managed to stumble across it I usually stopped to watch. I actually thought they looked pretty good, honestly. I love the way they're set up. They've got role players, pure shooters like Miller and Redd (who I've been saying needs to be on the Olympic team for I don't even remember how long), a true point to control the game (THE biggest need in International play) with Kidd, and the alpha dog to take over when need be with Kobe. I can't see any real glaring needs. Williams is fine as the backup to Kidd, and center really isn't that big of deal with International rules (poor Tim Duncan looked so frustrated in the last Olympics).

And yeah, the Lakers really should have made the Kidd trade, he and Kobe played great together. I imagine that Kobe's going to be even more pissed off at the Laker's front office now that he's had a taste of what might have been.

On another note, few things annoy me more than Carlos Arroyo in International play. I remember when he was on the Jazz he was horrible for us, then he'd go play for the Puerto Rican national team and suddenly turn into the Hispanic Allen Iverson. What the hell, dude?