Monday, August 25, 2008

"It's not about the name on the back but the letters in the front"

The Olympics are over and now, I can focus on other important things like fantasy football. I have yet to see a single football game since the Olympics consumed my entire free time. There were obviously tons of stories from this Olympics but the one sport I enjoyed the most was basketball.

Now for some of you, you might think that I would say basketball because I play all the time and naturally, it's my favorite sport... except I hardly watch any NBA games (except for the playoffs) and in the past, I actually did not enjoy watching the US men's basketball team. But this year, it was different. For the first time in a long time, I felt like these guys played like a team and it was actually entertaining as hell to watch. They kept repeating that this was about the team and not about the individual players. "It's not about the name on the back but the letters in the front." Whether they meant that or not, I thought that was really cool and they definitely stuck by it and played like it. I think the biggest proof of that is the fact that of the top 10 scorers (measured by ppg), there is only one US player... in 9th place and that's D Wade. (LeBron in 11th, Kobe in 13th). There are 5 guys averaging double digit scoring closely followed by Bosh with 9.1 ppg. It just shows that they spread the ball around and everyone is contributing to the win. Like I said, I really enjoyed watching all their games and though this is not the "Dream Team", it was the first time in a while that I thought "Man, this is a great team and I can't wait to see their next game."

This may not be the most talented team but a Kobe & Kidd backcourt tandem (or even better is Kobe and Chris Paul) is 10x better than the Marbury and Iverson combo... and this coming from a guy who actually likes Iverson... a lot.

If for some reason you missed the gold-medal game, you can watch the entire game here. As a matter of fact, you can watch every single sport. Personally, I think that's cool as shit.

One thing that I thought was interesting from the gold medal game was what it must be like to be 17 years old and be matched up against guys like Jason Kidd and Chris Paul (how is Chris Paul NOT the starter????). That was the case with Ricky Rubio. He's 17 years old, considered to be the best point guard ever to come out of Europe (really, how big of a compliment is that though?). According to wikipedia, in Slam magazine, he was compared to Magic Johnson... now that's gotta be a joke right? I mean Magic? Really? Only guy who could match up (and possibly school) Magic is LeBron. That kid is damn good. But nonetheless, I thought it had to be crazy wild for a guy who is 17 to be playing against one of the best PGs in the NBA. When he's eligible, he'll obviously be very much sought after. That should be a fun time.

I'm gonna miss the Olympics. For the past few weeks, it's like the playoffs atmosphere the whole time and that was fun. Japan sucked as usual and I lost my prop bet with Schaubs but nonetheless, I just love watching sports and all the drama that unfolds. But thank god, football season is right around the corner. Give it a few weekends and I won't even think about the Olympics at that point.

2 comments:

Schaubs said...

Ship it!

I love winning Rampage Dollars.

I agree with you about the whole team thing, those guys really proved that a bunch of millionaires can actually play for something other than themselves.

Bayne_S said...

Best point guard out of Europe so far is Tony Parker.

I saw Rubio compared to Pistol Pete in another article. At least in that case hair cut is similar but I did not see shooting range.

Sorry reference is pre 1992.