Olympics
I was going to do a top ten moments thing with youtube links, but NBC controls all the video and I can't link through them, so I will just quickly say
- Michael Phelps - dominant, obviously, extremely impressive; Certainly a top five athlete in the world; however, swimming as a sport has less strategy than almost anything and is barely watchable
- Beach volleyball was insanely entertaining. Props to Chris Marlowe and Karch Kiraly for doing such a great job in the booth.
- You'll never get me fired up to watch "Team USA Basketball." The US should win the gold at every competition they ever compete in and it should never be close. If you took out the top 50 American players, the US should still easily have the best team in the world. It is really incredible to think about Team USA losing multiple games earlier this decade.
- I loved watching Usain Bolt thinking, this is the fastest a human has ever run, of all the billions of humans that have run on the Earth, none has ever run as fast as him
posted by GnightMoon @ 12:32 PM
9 Comments:
"insanely entertaining" may be a perfect description of olympic beach volleyball. while the announcing was first-rate, id say, at least for the gold medal final, there were other factors at work. no one should doubt the power of skimpy swim suits and driving rain to pump up ratings.
I think you're disrespecting the international talent some. I wouldn't expect a team without any of the top 50 American born players in the NBA to necessarily be head and shoulders better than a team with one of the top 15 *overall* players in the NBA or one with two of the top 35 overall players in the NBA. I mean, how good do you think a team would really be with a starting lineup of something like Rip Hamilton, Josh Howard, Tyson Chandler, Devin Harris, and LaMarcus Aldridge?
Furthermore, you should know as well as anyone that the most talented team doesn't always win. It doesn't seem to blunt your interest in the NBA or college basketball, so I'm not so sure why it should in international competition.
That team you mentioned should be able to rip up any other country. Look at Spain - they had Pau Gasol (who is roughly the 30th best player in the NBA), Calderon (roughly equal to the guys you mentioned), Navarro (far worse), Fernandez (who looked like Larry Bird in the final), and a bunch of guys that couldn't crack an NBA rotation. I'd like to think Hamilton, Howard, et. al could handle that Spanish team no problem, though the Spaniards did shoot real hot in the final.
I was super impressed by Spain on Saturday night. If we are talking about shooting lights out from the outside 13-28 by a US team from 3pt land certainly qualifies. Obviously the line is shorter, and they got great looks off their ability to penetrate and draw double teams, but they still knocked down the 3ball above expectation.
I think a lot of Spain's strength lies in their team cohesiveness, derived from logging a lot of hours together. Bball is an ultimate team sport. And this lends credence to why they would have success against a rag tag team such as described above.
Lastly, as a hoops fan of all levels, I thoroughly enjoyed the Olympic Final. I thought it was a great game and very entertaining.
PS. Great blog, I just discovered it recently, but have gone back and read a ton of posts and even checked out some other blogs you have referenced throughout. So thanks for the good read.
I am disappointed by this blog post. I feel like you're saying these things just to get a rise out of people because you don't really want to take the time to think about the Olympics and would rather have other people make the effort.
Agreed on everything, Michael Damian. Pickett - sorry you feel that way. It was a lazy post and I didn't want to expend the energy to write a real post...not with the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE season right around the corner!
It is because of arrogance like this that got USA basketball in trouble in the first place. First of all, if it wasn't for Kobe Bryant("the best player in the world") going off in the last 4 minutes, we would have lost. That fact in itself, makes your comment about not having the best 50 American players on a team and still rolling over the world preposterous. I could write a book on this subject, but I'll spare you. Also, y'all might wanna keep an eye on "Ricky" from Spain. He continually handled the US pressure while not turning the ball over (too much) and executing Spain's offense very efficiently. Oh by the way, hes 17. 17!?!?!?!?!?! What were you doing when you were 17?
Okay Seth...Kobe hit some big shots the last five minutes but only because he was taking every shot...I thought he was bringing Team USA down throughout the game with his ballhogging and bad teamwork...Screw you Kobe...The Spaniard that really impressed me was Rudy Fernandez.
agreed, the only thing Kobe does is take bad shots and gamble on D. I was just trying to be overly dramatic. However, I sill firmly believe that if we would have sent any less than our top team, we don't win.....
p.s. dude is 17.......17!?!?!??!?!
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