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3. Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook and The Cosby Show
They both played beautifully and with tremendous energy, but they also both starred in the U.S.'s worst moments by taking bad shots.
It's tough for them. They are stars. They rightly carry themselves as such. But with Durant shouldering the load on offense, these two guards were left to play defense, bring the ball up, and maybe score in transition once in a while. When they did those things, Team USA was excellent. But every now and again, they just had to make sure everyone remembered that they're scorers, dammit. And then there were jacked 3s with way better options, mid-range Russell pull-ups that were doomed before they were even released, and some one-on-five forays to the rim.
Sometimes I wonder if this is our fault. We reward scoring so damned much. With highlights. With bigger salaries. With cheering. It's just pummeled into players that scoring is the only way to be cool. Meanwhile, in reality they were cool the whole time except when they were determined to be scoring.
Let's talk about The Cosby Show for a minute. There's a scene in Season 3 when Vanessa has made some inroads with some of the cool girls at school. They are coming over so, like teenagers everywhere, she banishes her family so that they won't make her look uncool. Desperate to impress her guests, Vanessa starts showing off all of the most expensive things in the house, including some $11,000 painting.
The next day, people start calling her "rich girl" at school which leads to a fight and a lot of complications, none of which helps Vanessa achieve her long-term goals of being happier at school.
Meanwhile, she is perfectly cool. Cool enough! But then she didn't feel cool enough, and decided to prove she was even cooler than that. And that's what got her in trouble.
Same deal with Rose and Westbrook. Rose's role on Team USA is to be athletic and efficient, and he does those things so well. That horrible, covered 3 early in the clock ... that's an attempt to prove he's even cooler than that.
And Westbrook was drafted fourth overall and even that high it was a steal. His team needs him! But isn't it enough to play great defense, to score in transition, and to pound little guys like Tony Parker and Steve Blake by getting into the lane? To be a real man must he also force the action my dribbling into misses?
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5. The Bulls big man
Omer Asik, the Turk who is scheduled to join the Bulls, sure passes the eye test. Holy cow is he big, strong and mobile. He looks like a guy who could cause playoff problems. (Imagine if Joakim Noah went to the bench and the Bulls got bigger and longer.) However, you know how imported big men like Toni Kukoc and Dirk Nowitzki have forced us to rethink the role of the seven-footer? You know how all those international big men have polished guard skills, and can shoot from all over the court? Yeah, not this dude. He may be an overseas big man, but he's certainly no Nowitzki.
The Turks initiated their offense by getting Asik the ball with deep position, that's not, I don't think, because they wanted him to shoot it every time, or ever. He had a variety of attempts throughout the game, and he managed to make nearly all of them look far more difficult than they ought to have been. Perhaps it was nerves -- this was one of the biggest sporting events in his nation's history.
There was a point with about six minutes left in the third quarter when Turkey had closed within 15. The crowd got really loud. Asik grew determined to do his part, to bring his team even closer. He worked his way close to the hoop and threw up the ugliest, most off-balanced thing that missed my a couple of kilometers. But he got it back, almost undefended! He could have taken one step and slammed it. But he rushed something crazy and off-balanced and bricked it again.
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