Due to COVID-19 concerns spectators will not be allowed at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in a few weeks. And with the way Team USA Basketball has opened their exhibition season perhaps this is a good thing.
Yes, that’s a joke. But so is the way this superstar team has played thus far.
Team USA followed up a stunning loss to Nigeria (a team they beat by 83 points in 2012) Saturday night with an equally astounding 91-83 loss to Australia Monday night. Team USA held a nine-point lead at halftime but was out-hustled, out-shot, out-everything that mattered down the stretch. Damian Lillard lead the way for America with 22 points. Jayson Tatum chimed in with eight points and a brutal late airball in a night he’ll likely want to forgot.
Sure, Australia is one of the better squads competing at Tokyo, with several quality NBA players on their roster, like Patty Mills, Joe Ingles and Matisse Thybulle, among others. But they’re not an assembly, THE assembly of the best players in the world. That would be Team USA, who should borrow Australia’s team name because it’s America playing like a bunch of Boomers.
Predictably social media had their fun, and a lot of it, at Team USA’s expense. Arguably reading NBA Twitter after the game was the only fun part.
And even Nigeria basketball got in on the meme action Monday night. Oh, the online humanity!
Sure, these games are just tune-ups for when it counts in Japan in a few weeks, the first game in Tokyo July 25. But it looks like much more than a tune-up this team is going to need before the games matter. And Team USA can’t expect previous heroes like LeBron James, Steph Curry or Carmelo Anthony to bail them out. They’ll have to rely on the likes of Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker, who’s playing currently in the NBA Finals, and can’t get there soon enough.
The good news is coach Gregg Popovich seems pleased with half of what he saw Monday night, but that Team USA lost their legs in the second half. All in all he seems to be taking this rough start in vintage Pop fashion.
Actually, there is one impressive stat this iteration of Team USA has accomplished thus far: In just three days they’ve doubled the program’s loss total in exhibition games since allowing professionals to play in 1992; 54-2 to 54-4, in just three days.
Sure, there are different rules than the NBA, and the game has globalized. Long gone are the days of pushovers, blowouts and sleepwalking to gold, like when the Dream Team in 1992, the first year pros were allowed, averaged a 43.8 point margin of victory on their way to the top. But there’s no room for excuses when a collection of max contracts and all-stars, the best basketball players on Earth, assemble for forty minute games against worthy but inferior talent.
Their first two opponents have shot the lights out. Nigeria shot 48 percent from beyond the arc, going 20-42. Australia shot a stellar 53 percent from the field. You can maybe chalk those numbers up to great performances by teams rising to the occasion, or maybe it’s bad defense from a collection of stars used to having their way in a format like this. It’s not Kevin Durant’s first rodeo, and this team is too talented to play like this. America has already had plenty of embarrassments this year, like the Britney Spears saga and the “Tom & Jerry” movie, to afford another.
Team USA is back in action tonight against Argentina, who has four current NBA players and a former NBA baller in Luis Scola on the squad. They’ll try and complete the exhibition upset trilogy, as Team USA looks to not just fine tune and improve, but also avoid embarrassment. Again. Ironic to have them playing for some respect in a fake game on a night when baseball’s all stars assemble for an exhibition that is actually supposed to produce smiles and laughs.