Well, I still think you had better look to your laurels cos didn't US just get beaten by Germany at basketball?
Let's get back to this bit. So Germany beat the US at basketball, but what does that mean? I know that the team they put out was not the strongest possible - well in actual fact I don't
know that cos I don't know who was in it and if I did I wouldn't be able to evaluate how good they were, but I think that's how they do it. Though why do they do that, especially cos people do seem to get annoyed and think it reflects badly on US basketball when they lose?
is it that the club's don't want to risk (or in fact let the national side risk) damaging their expensive assets in a glorified friendly? But if so how come the national team gets its hands on any pros? Now I think about this it sort of feels that the US is trying to walk the tightrope of picking the cheapest ie weakest team that can still win the tournament, but they didn't win so I guess they got it wrong and underestimated the other side's strength. You must get lots of close games this way, US is probably the drawingest side... except you can't have draws can you? Perhaps they are the decidedontiebreakersingest* team out there.
It's a little frustrating that it's done like this though cos we can't really judge how strong the real US team is.
in your opinion
@ghost of beiser or
@linebaugh etc, if the US really put its best team out how much better would it be than the second best national team? Or perhaps the more interesting question is how would US v Rest of World work out? Or US v Europe?
I get the impression that there a number of European players amongst the very best in the NBA, perhaps even five or six of them - I should check this actually, I could be talking total bollocks, but say I'm right, would that mean that a unified European team could give em a game... or is that too simple a way to look at it? Perhaps it just doesn't work like that.
*Weirdly dissensus doesn't recognise this word