Trae Young isn't on the Team USA Olympic roster, but he might not be performing at the same high level we're used to if he was. That's not to say he'd be doing poorly, but it's just an acknowledgment of the fact that he added around eight points per game over the last two years by way of the free throw line. Under FIBA rules? Probably not gonna happen.
On Tuesday morning, following Team USA's second straight exhibition loss (but before their win over Argentina), Yahoo Sports' Chris Haynes wrote that FIBA rules and the officiating style was having a negative impact on Team USA's success:
Team USA is still in a feeling-out period when it comes to playing with each other, and one noticeable observation is that they're still in NBA mode. Throughout the games, multiple players, from Jayson Tatum to Bradley Beal, have been staring down the officials following no-calls as they’re accustomed to receiving touch fouls or star-treatment officiating in the NBA.
It's this type of play style that has removed one vital way that NBA players are used to scoring, especially players like the ones on Team USA, who are oftentimes stars thanks to their ability to draw contact, get to the line and do a bulk of their damage that way. So, for many of these guys, returning to the NBA way of doing things will be a nice return to normalcy, even with the league adding rules that attempt to stop players from taking unusual jump shots and drawing contact in unnecessary fashion.
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Jared Dudley, on the other hand, wants to see the FIBA style come back to the NBA and take hold of the league. Faster games, less replay reviewing, more legal contact... that's his ideal way of doing things.
How to execute that? Dudley says that it starts at the top, which would mean the league office and those who determine the rules. But he simultaneously says that the referees need to stop rewarding players for their foul-drawing ways, even if that means intentionally keeping their whistles out of their mouths when a foul, according to the rule book, should be called.
We'll see how Team USA fares once the actual tournament starts, and if we see much higher quality games with a lot of good basketball competition, it might be something to think about. We'll also have to see how the new rules, once implemented, affect players like Young, James Harden, Luka Doncic and the rest of the stars who always find themselves on the free throw line, clear foul or not.
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