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Go look at tony Parker and Boris Diaw. They've been playing for France together since 1997.
"Parker played for France's Junior National Teams at the 1997 FIBA Europe Under-16 Championship, both the 1998 and 2000 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championships, and the 2002 FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship. He was elected the Most Valuable Player of the 2000 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship, when France captured the gold medal, as he averaged 14.4 points and 2.5 assists per game.[12][45][46] Parker averaged 25.8 points, 6.8 assists, and 6.8 steals per game at the 2002 FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship.[5][45] With the French senior national team, Parker has played in the 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013 FIBA EuroBaskets."
Comparatively speaking, Lebron had his first international play in the 2004 Olympics where he hardly even played.
Well let's see...Lebron was what 19 in the '04 Olympics...then he played 2006 FIBA, 2007 FIBA...'08 Olympics, '12 Olympics. Lebron was basically a fixture of US basketball for a decade.
And then you have Melo who was on the junior national team in '02 (age 17-18)...and went on to play in a record 4 straight Olympics.
That's arguably two of the best Americans playing international ball from their teens into their primes.
Oh, and another example of chemistry - '12 Olympics you have Westbrook, Durant and Harden on the SAME team...years and years of playing together. You also have Chandler and Melo who both played for the Knicks. Of course you also have Kevin Love who was teammates with Westbrook at UCLA.
You also have AAU/camps/all star games that have American players playing together and against each other at young ages.
2004 olympics, 2006 fiba, 2007 fiba
the only 2 players that wre on all 3 are melo and lebron. 2004 james scored a TOTAL of 22 pts and got no minutes, melo scored 17 and got even less minutes.
go look at the argentines roster. guys like manu, nochioni, scola, delfino, prigioni, oberto, all nba players at some point
you get it now?
so while melo played in 4 olympics and lebron has been on a few team with him, the us mens national team doesnt have the same consistency that the other countries have.
the us mens national team didnt even field more then 2 people 3 fiba/olympics in a row. the 2007 fiba was an olympic qualifier so you have to have a certain % of the same players in the olympics as on the qualifier team. no comparison to guys who have been playing together since 1995, 2001, 2003 until 2011 or even 2016. they have a consistency, a chemistry, and they are all more "brothers" when you hear them talk about each other. in the USA there are so many players, and yeah "hes my boy" but in argentina, france, spain "hes my brother".
I think that top all star to top all star the level is equaling out. But that doesn't matter an actual team at a high enough level will beat their league's all stars since they will have the grunt workers and role players that a team needs. If you get two hot hands on any given night then that team might win even if playing against the greatest player of their generation. But when you play a series the better team normally adjust and takes the prize.
2004 olympics, 2006 fiba, 2007 fiba
the only 2 players that wre on all 3 are melo and lebron. 2004 james scored a TOTAL of 22 pts and got no minutes, melo scored 17 and got even less minutes.
go look at the argentines roster. guys like manu, nochioni, scola, delfino, prigioni, oberto, all nba players at some point
you get it now?
so while melo played in 4 olympics and lebron has been on a few team with him, the us mens national team doesnt have the same consistency that the other countries have.
the us mens national team didnt even field more then 2 people 3 fiba/olympics in a row. the 2007 fiba was an olympic qualifier so you have to have a certain % of the same players in the olympics as on the qualifier team. no comparison to guys who have been playing together since 1995, 2001, 2003 until 2011 or even 2016. they have a consistency, a chemistry, and they are all more "brothers" when you hear them talk about each other. in the USA there are so many players, and yeah "hes my boy" but in argentina, france, spain "hes my brother".
But like I said, the Americans have the advantage of playing in the same league (NBA), same country (they aren't playing all over the world and joining together every few years), many times on the same NBA team, same all star game, often times multiple international competitions together AND ultra competitive playoffs with/against each other. They also play on the biggest basketball stage in the world in a country of 300 million where basketball is far and away most popular. They are coached and trained by arguably the best in the world...coach K and Boeheim for 10 years - talk about consistency. Heck, coach K had Kyrie at Duke and Boeheim had Mello at Duke. Coach K recruited Barnes and coached against him for 3 years.
The "they play together more" line is nothing more than an excuse. Those playing for Spain, Australia, Serbia, etc, have their own individual careers and lives to worry about just as much as Americans. It's not like they all prep for international competition all year.
Regardless, even if we accept your premise of familiarity making tiny countries so good - how would we explain the night and day difference between say 1992 and 2000+? Were international players less familiar with each other in '92 or '96?
Last edited by eddiehaskell; 02-25-2017 at 11:37 AM..
Well there you go, I guess you have all the answers and don't need input from anyone else.
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