Woohoo!!!

And Kobe is the best dumb player ever.

Gonna be a long year for you this year.

i never once mention spains offense or usa's defense.

I feel like I'm rating Spain and the USA according to how they've actually played in international competition and not being some USA homer like everyone else.

I feel as if I was pretty much spot on in my analysis of this game and what I expected to happened was EXACTLY RIGHT. Many others called for a USA blowout, and now they're hiding behind excuses of "Everything went right for Spain though", which look absolutely ridiculous when I point out the many breaks that didn't go Spain's way.

If you put these back to their mean values (excluding, of course, this game) the US loses 11 points. So it's still a tie game and you haven't account for Spain shooting out of their minds.

LOL@ "win by double digits". They got free throws, technical free throws, and the ball back with about a minute left. Moreover, Spain went into foul mode and let the US pad their lead.

As any sports bettor will tell you, a 3 point basketball game can be just as close as a 10 point game because fouling down the stretch can make close games look not close.

Oh and I am definitely not shocked whatsoever by the result of the game, as its pretty much exactly what I expected and thats why I took the +330 bet with you(congrats btw).

Plz put down the crack pipe and back away. USA would just stop switching on screens and gambling so much for steals. you do realize that Spain shot 51% from the field right, that's not some stupendous #, like say the 60% the USA shot.

The first game was meaningless. Whats the Indy Colts and NE Pats preseason records so far this year? Do you think those games really tell you anything? SAme thing with that 37 point loss.

And I just explained the 11 point thing in the above post. That was pretty much as close of a game as it gets with it being a 2 point game late in the 4th. You're using USA pulling away in the final minutes due to fouling as a reason to label it "an 11 point win" which is faulty reasoning imo.

Every time you talk about previous competitions you're rating teams of Stephon Marbury, Richard Jefferson, Lamar Odom, Joe Johnson, Kirk Heinrich, Antawn Jamison, and Brad Miller in a comparison of what you claim is the best the US has to offer in international basketball.

Also, you talk about FIBA 2002 and 2006 but leave off the FIBA America's 2003 where the USA thrashed Argentina 106-73 in the finals. 10 of the 12 players on that team left before the 2004 Olympics.

This coming from the guy who just said "but if this wasn't the best they could play then it was in the 99.9th percentile of games they could play."


YOU ARE THE ONE MAKING ABSURD COMMENT ABOUT HOW WELL SPAIN DID OR DIDN'T PLAY, NOT ME!

I think Spain played a totally average game. That was what I expected out of Spain in a Gold Medal game. If they played tomorrow, I'd expect them to play similarly.

You're the one making TOTALLY UNFOUNDED claims about how well Spain did or didn't play.

can u please realize how ridiculous it is to compare the other USA teams to this one? if u are comparing the USA team that played in THIS 2008 OLYMPICS vs spain and think that they are very close then we are watching 2 different things.

calderon not playing doesnt really matter because it was impossible to get better production then they ended up getting from navarro/rudy.

what is hysterical is when the argument was being talked about and the spain/russia matchup was being talked about in which spain lost by 2 in the euro championship and beat russia by 30 in an exhibition game u called the more important game in which spain lost not as important b/c of how close it was and a last second shot and the game that didnt matter as far more telling of the difference between the 2 teams.

in this olympics usa beat spain by 37 and i think an olympic round robin game is more important then a warm up exhibition, you will argue this somehow though. then in the gold medal game spain still lost by 11. you then decide to only use this game as evidence. a game they LOST by 11, after LOSING by 37 a week before.

somehow you conclude that spain=us and spain>>>>>russia.

please respond.

Oh really? So I didn't say:

Absurd and unfounded. I've given you Spain's shooting stats. I don't know why you refuse to admit them.

I backed you up before the Olympics when you were talking about what the US team needed to improve. They improved those things and won against everybody's best shot. If you are right about Spain not giving it their all in the first game then you have to admit that they felt THE ONLY WAY TO BEAT THE US TEAM WAS TO HIDE THEIR TRUE GAME PLAN AND TRY SOMETHING NEW. If they played tomorrow all of that would be gone and it would be an even bigger win.

The 37 point loss was in a meaningless game. Come on, you know Spain didn't care about that.

USA was up by 2 points with about 4 minutes to go IIRC(could be wrong about the time). Theres no way you can honestly tell me you don't think thats a close game. I don't care if they score 40 points in the last 4 minutes, to be that close wtih 4 minutes to go is a close game.

Seems like you guys need to get your arguments straight here.

I'm going to try and get some sleep since I'm playing golf in 7 hours and have been up all night, but we can continue this tomorrow Assani when heads are clearer and tempers cooler.

Also, I would just like to point out that everyone laughed at me when I said Bosh > Howard out here. Muahahaha bitches.

i really think our definiton of close is different. yeah it was competitive. if u could stop the game at any single second u choose then say ill give u 4-1 if u take spain there is no way i would. for there to never be a second where in the second half where i dont think spain has over a 20% chance of winning i dont really consider it a close game. for it to be a close game i would like one of the teams to have a reasonable chance of winning for 1 second of the game but thats just me

Of all the weird logic....

So because their SG and SF played well that means that having their PG, who is their 2nd best player, out for the game didn't hurt them?


I think its so funny to hear this "OMG Player X played out of his mind and would never play that well again. Spain just got lucky that he played so well."

I mean, JCN shot 6/14 and Fernandez shot 7/13. Do you really think its that impossible that they'd put up those numbers should they play again? And even if they don't, its possibble that maybe Gasol, Calderon(didn't play), Garbajosa(very very quiet game), or someone else would step up and then you guys would be going on and on about how that player never usually plays that well and they just got lucky.

How come for JCN and Fernandez to shoot a combined 13/27 makes you guys act like they "played out of their minds", but when Wade/Prince/Howard/Kidd/Lebron combine for 22/28 like they did today you don't say a peep about them running well?

ok sorry please respond.

i havent really ever seen them play navarro, calderon, rudy on court at same time. so it is relevant.

and usa is good at making dunks, layups and open 10 footers.

Major props on the Bosh call, and gl with golf.

I still don't even know what we're arguing here though. From my perspective, I feel as if I was spot on in my analysis throughout this thread. I wish I came in here before the game started because I swear that my prediction was "a close game that USA pulls out at the end." And I swear I would've added "And for the love of God please don't make excuses about Spain playing over their heads after they play them tough."

You guys are right, and I will stop talking about Team USA teams from 2004 and such. However, 2 years ago was the same exact story. Everyone overrated Team USA, yet Greece played them very tough. It was a close game and Team USA happened to lose. Same thing this year, only it was Spain instead of Greece and Team USA happened to win the close game instead of lose it. Game that are within a few points late in the 4th really do boil down to a ton of variance and luck. And in both of these cases, you guys fell back on "Oh but USA just played bad" or "Greece/Spain just played out of their minds."

Is it going to be the same exact excuses two years from now when Team USA plays another close game? When will you ever admit that Team USA just isn't head and shoulders above the competition anymore, and other countries are only going to be getting better.

I never ever called an exhibition game more important.

Regardless, I think that with meaningless regulard season(or round robin) games or with meaningless exhibition/preseason games, its not always the same for every team. For example, young NFL team that have a lot to prove probably really try hard to win in the preseason to get confidence. Therefore, if I was a fan of one of these types of teams I would be really encouraged to see them doing well in the preseason(especially in the first quarter when starters are playing). However, for teams like the Colts/Pats I wouldn't bat an eye if they went 0-4 and got blown out all 4 times.


And in this case, I watched the game twice(and still have it on DVR), and I'm certain that Spain wasn't giving 100% against USA in that game.

I didn't see the Spain/Russia exhibition and I have no clue how hard each team was or wasn't trying.

Nevertheless, I predicted this Gold Medal game to end up pretty much exactly as it did. In other words, I WAS RIGHT. I understand that its easy for me to say this now, which is why I keep saying how I wish I came in here before this game so I could've had it in writing. But I think my tone throughout this thread as well as my bets prove that I'm not lying when I say thats what I thought would happen.

if we could lock a bet in i would wager a large amount that the average margin of victory is over 20 points for USA in the next 4 olympics which gives other countries plenty of time to catch up. this team will effect the personnel usa can get.
next olympics they are gonna have 25-27 yr old greg oden andrew bynum dwight howard amare for possible bigs. wing guys like lebron, wade, carmelo will be in their prime, and for the pg they will have deron williams, chris paul derrick rose. im forgetting guys like durant and beasley, but yeah spain will def be just as good.

So when Rubio/JCN/Rudy were on the court tonight, if Calderon were healthy you don't think he would've been out there in Rubio's place???

And Spain is good at making those too. It goes both ways. YOu can't say Spain got lucky to shoot so well but then say USA can be expected to because they were shooting easy shots. If anything I'd say that Kobe Bryant was the one player making tough shots tonight. Many of Spain's buckets were shots they were very comfortable taking, were in the flow of their offense, and were open.

The game tonight was very fun and exciting, but I don't know how anyone could reasonably conclude that Spain would win more than 1 out of 8 times they face USA. IMO, atleast.