It had been EIGHT years since USA Men’s Basketball had won an international competition. Then, in USA’s EIGHTH game of the Olympics, the so called “Redeem Team” joined Michael Phelp’s EIGHT gold medal performance as the biggest stories of the 2008 Olympics, which started on… 08/08/08. That said, here are 8 observations about USA’s 2008 gold medal run think about. — 1 — If Team USA proved...

To my surprise, I started crying when the game ended, just a little, as I watched USA coach Mike Krzyzewski cry. Good job, Coach Krzyzewski. Good job USA. Game analysis will come other time; I’m just going to drink in this moment for now. I love this game, and I love this country… it couldn’t be any better, could...

Whenever there’s a conversation about USA Basketball, there’s always someone pontificating about the 1992 “Dream Team”  There should really be a special website for people who live in the past so they don’t keep cluttering up conversations about international basketball. And then there are the guys always harping on USA because it sends NBA players instead of college guys. Sigh. Today the best player on the...

redeem (verb) – to do something that makes other people have a better opinion of (you), especially after you have behaved badly or failed at something. — Cambridge Dictionary of American English. Whoever first coined the phrase, “The road to redemption” must have understood that redemption is almost never a single act or gesture. Redemption is a road that, like all roads, must to be traveled a step at a time. Today...

Perhaps the two most notable things about this game against Germany are: 1. How sharp USA played in a “meaningless game,” and 2. How USA strayed from the winning formula it has been using so far in international play. Because USA could force themselves to play with such sharpness in a meaningless game like this, I’m thinking there won’t be any let downs in the medal games to come. But it’s really remarkable how...

If you are a fan of USA basketball, this was a great game, but two numbers indicate Team USA wasn’t yet tested where it is weakest: inside. Those two numbers are 28 and 64. Twenty-eight. Spain committed 28 turnovers versus the United States. For perspective, Spain committed 8 turnovers in their previous game against Greece. Sixty four. USA shot 7 of 11 (64%) from the arc in the first half. For perspective, that is better than...

The first quarter was tense. In the first minute and a half, Jason Kidd picked up 3 fouls, none of them would have been fouls in the NBA. Enter Chris Paul, and he turned the ball over on his very first pass. Add bogus foul calls on Dwight Howard and Kobe Bryant, (not to mention the fouls that weren’t being called on Greece), and in the first 2 minutes of play, Team USA found themselves with a 5 to 0 foul disparity, a starter on the...

Hot on the heals of Josh Childress’s departure from the Atlanta Hawks to play in Greece, the Hawks have just learned they may have missed out on a promising prospect that was almost on their front door step. According to this story… Matthew Whitton, a cop in Clayton County, Ga., and his friend Rick Dyer, a former corrections officer, say they recently found the body of Big Foot in the woods of northern Georgia. Veteran Bigfoot...

Observations about the USA vs. Angola game have me thinking USA has a problem with their “bigs,” or in other words, a BIG problem. — Angola’s 3 point shooting was about as bad as Team USA’s (29%), as was their mid range game, meaning most of Angola’s 76 points came inside, which is SERIOUSLY bad news for Team USA. USA’s bigs were dismayingly deficient defensively, especially since Angola may be the...

If anyone is wondering where the Lakers think they are weakest, they need not look further than the fact that their last 3 personnel moves were all attempts to shore up their backcourt. — Transaction #1: the Lakers used their sole pick in the 2008 NBA draft: Joe Crawford a guard out of the Univeristy of Kentucky. Crawford, who is 6’5″ in some reports and 6’4″ in others, is a solid shooter, but no ball handler,...

Here is some interesting research — so interesting in fact that you will hear no doubt hear it again — but remember, you heard it from ME first! Anyway… In the last 14 years, when it has come down to just the last 2 teams in the NBA Finals, the team with the best defense during the regular season has won the NBA Championship every time, except for the New Jersey Nets, and in 2001 when the Lakers beat the 76ers —...

It is the age old problem in sports: is winning all that really matters? Or are there moral and ethical constraints to competition? The whole plot of the movie, The Karate Kid, was based on this ever present dichotomy in sports. On the one side was the dojo with the teacher who taught kids that winning was everything and losing was weakness. And on the other side was the old Japanese soldier who taught that winning was best when it was a...