USA Olympic Basketball Team

anybody who doubts that the current USA Olympic basketball team could beat the 1992 Dream Team is seriously deluded.

 

nice try. you know what i meant...

 

Yeah I understand completely that sentiment.

We should probably cheer we'll kick your ass in basketball when they beat our men in soccer.

 

Well it was actually competative for three quarters. USA dominates in the fourth. CP3 Durant just killin it.

 

I don't know if this incarnation of the Dream Team could defeat the '92 outfit (especially without a dominant big man), but the defenders of the original Dream Team do tend to ignore the fact that both Magic and Bird were at the very end of their respective careers back then. The year wasn't 1986.

By contrast, with the exception of Kobe, the entire 2012 vintage is in their prime.

 

if you watch film of the 1992 team, you can see how spectacularly athletic they are and how overwhelming. but what gets lost is that they weren't playing against the quality that the current USA Olympic basketball team is. Spain has 3 established NBA "stars", and there are three other players who played in the NBA one who opted to return to Spain to play for a perennial league champ, FC Barcelona Basquet.

i maintain that the 1992 team would have been very hard pressed to handle the physicality of LBJ and the outside shooting of Durant and Melo, the speed of Westbrook, and the fact that there is almost so little dropoff from the starting 5 to the second 5.

i'm not suggesting that Kobe et cie would dominate The Dream Team, but it would have been a pitched battle, and Charles Barkley saying that TDT was clearly better is silliness.

 

Congratulations to the USA Men's and Women's Basketball teams for winning the Gold Medal. Well done to both teams. Particularly the women who have no peer.

Well done to Spain who without Rubio, played a great game.

 

HAHAHAHA

did you see how gasol just dominated team usa in that 3rd quarter? come on now, the Dream Teams frontline would OWN the 2012 olympic team hands down.

 

Ummm, the 2012 Lithuania team is no better than the 1992 version, in fact most Lithuanian fans regard it was worse, and I sure didn't see the original Dream Team trailing in the 4th against Lithuania.

You might have had a case if this team had Rose and Howard, but in all truth the 2012 squad was pretty damned weak at PG and center. A whole damn lot of wing players, that I will give you. But a flawed team.

 

I definitely agree with you about the weakness at center and, although I think the team would benefit by having DRose, it's hard to argue that Paul, Williams, and Westbrook aren't a pretty impressive stable of point guards. But the current U.S. team would be severely overmatched at the power forward position where both Barkley and the Mailman would have been able to score at will inside against Kevin Love or whichever small forward was asked to play out of position to defend the 4.

 

Barkley score at will? You can't be serious. Maybe if they played with that odd 'international' trapezoidal paint, but with the traditional key, it's much easier to get weak side help.

And Barkley would be exhausted from chasing around whoever he would have to guard, a player who would take him outside, where his offensive rebounding would be somewhat neutralized -- unless KLove was his responsibility, in which case he'd be sunk either way. You do know that Barkley was about 6'4", right. The reason he was so successful in his day stemmed largely from the fact that he was so strong in comparison to other 'small' forwards.

It's hard to know what the defensive matchups would be, but nobody on the DT would have been able to handle LBJ. His role probably would change from point forward to offensive juggernaut.

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think that Scottie in his prime would be able to challenge LeBron on the defensive end more than anyone else he's had to face in the NBA. I also think that Barkley would wipe the floor with KLove and if Chandler came over to double, Ewing and Robinson would knock down open jumpers all day long. Barkley seemed to do pretty well during his NBA career with that traditional key and perhaps you didn't watch much of the Sixers and Suns later in his career, but he was rarely guarded by a small forward. I remember countless battles between him and Horace Grant (a 4 time member of the All-Defenseive team) and Barkley was just a beast whether he posted up or took him off the dribble. Certainly Barkley would not being able to guard players well on the perimeter -- he never played that much defense to begin with -- but with Michael, Scottie, and Drexler playing the passing lanes and the centers protecting the basket, I would take my chances that the player guarding Barkley would end up in foul trouble before he would.

 

Scottie Pippen on LBJ? lol

Lebron would eat him alive. Pippen was a great player, but when you give up 40 pounds, you lose a lot of battles Pippen was a small forward in an era where small forwards were his size, not 6'8"/270.

 

ZONE ZONE ZONE!!!!

 

James is much quicker then Jordan was.

 

Durant would score 61 on the 1992 team but never scored even 40 against the field in 2012? How do you explain that.

 

[Are you on a roll now, Bluto? ]

 

[The '92 "DT" also had "Mailman" Malone on the roster as well...]

 

One of the great power forwards in the history of the NBA.

I would not discount Barkley at 6'-4" or 6'-5". The man could seriously rebound and score.

 

there's no question about the quality of Barkley and Malone. but discounting Kevin Love as not being able to compete with Barkley is silly. in 5 years, barring injury, Love will have averaged what Barkley did, 22ppg and 12rpg. he weighs the same as Barkley and is 4-6 inches taller. he's going to be a perennial All-Star. he's only 23.

the biggest issue with the DT v. the current Olympic team is where the matchups would fall. obviously, the DT has an inside height advantage, but they lack perimeter quickness. 2012 is absolutely stacked. please don't lose sight of the fact that Larry Bird was not a big factor in 1992, and John Stockton didn't play much.

it was pointed out that the 2012 team struggled against Lithuania, and while that's true, a couple of players didn't have good games. things like that happen.

i'm not saying that the 2012 team would beat up on the DT, but Charles Barkley implied that they wouldn't be any serious competition. i think he's wrong.

 

[Speaking of being eaten alive and a combination of size and dominance on the court: What about the two legitimate seven-plus footers who can score twenty-plus that the "DT" had in Patrick Ewing and David Robinson?

The NBA/rectangular key is going to let a David Robinson set up where he wants inside and just go to work on poor Tyson Chandler...]

 

[ The "DT" could also mainly use Barkley at the three-spot and Malone at the four...]