NO TO FIBA FOR THE U.S.A.
The last few days I have watched the USA basketball team in the FIBA world championships and it is completely useless for the US to be there. Here are my reasons for it: what is their to prove? We are the best in the world that’s not even up for debate. The officials are soooo bad it’s hurting the NBA players aggressiveness. What happens if one of the players get hurt? The owner/coach is out of a really good player off their team and is wasting millions of dollars on a player who is not playing. The only thing that comes out of playing in international competition is maybe a loss, that’s the only surprise that could happen. When the US team wins what has been accomplished? nothing. They are supposed to win and the players who win the gold are they respected more? of course not. The only thing that counts is an NBA title, just ask Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, John Stockton, and Reggie Miller. The careers of those guys are great and have won gold at a FIBA event but no NBA title and their careers are not the same without the NBA title. I have fundamental problems with the US team the process of picking players like Rondo and Wallace don’t make but Kevin Love does what a joke.Out of all of the coaches to coach the team and they get Mike Krzyzewski, before you think I am saying he is a bad coach(he is not) I know for a fact there are better coaches for that team. Do americans care about FIBA events? no way who will watch them play vs players they never heard of from countries that they could not spot on the map. My suggestion is to skip FIBA events all together and go to state games. Split the country into 8 regions 1 summer get 1 winner from each region the next summer the 8 region winners play for the championship. Play the tournaments in late July or early August. eligibility age is 17 and older. You play for the state you were born in. If you were born overseas you play for the state you first took up residents (i.e. Carlos Boozer was born in Germany but would play for Alaska). If the state games took place more people would care. Could you imagine watching team Alabama with Gerald Wallace, Ben Wallace, Jamario Moon, DeMarre Carroll, Theo Ratliff, Mario West, Walter Sharpe, D.J. White, Eric Bledsoe, Demarcus Cousins, Mo Finley, Mario Austin,and Ronnie Mccollum coached by Mike Davis playing against team Georgia with Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, Toney Douglas, Jarvis Hayes, JJ Hickson, Jordan Hill, Jodie Meeks, Kenny Thomas, Al Thornton, and Louis Williams coached by Sam Mitchell. People would watch basketball in the summer before the real season tips off or we can keep watching the US play Iran and Tunisia.