Sorry for the long post, this is something I was thinking about today.......
Team USA has put a nice bow on its 'Coach K/Jerry Colangelo' era with a record of 62-1 overall, 3 golds and 1 bronze. It feels like the USA will be moving into a new era and so my question is, will these next two World Cups and Olympics be as successful as the Coach K ones?
My two cents- there are a lot of variables obviously with attempting to project that far out. However, my feeling is we will still be extremely successful and will/should be favored in every tournament for the next few years at least but matching the 62-1 record will be difficult. My reasoning:
1) We are in a second golden age of talent for our team, this generation of players that graduated high school from '02 to '07 are great- Lebron, Wade, Howard, Paul, Bosh, Durant, Rose, Love, Carmelo, D-Will, Eric Gordon, Igoudala etc. Being a pretty avid follower of recruiting rankings and the AAU/high school circuit I just don't see quite as much talent coming through the pipeline right now. The '08 and on classes haven't been bad by my measure but they aren't quite at the same level and that's including the '13 and '14 classes in high school right now.
2) Our core guys from the Coach K era- Lebron, Kobe, Carmelo, Paul, Wade really bought into the idea of playing multiple times with Team USA in order to establish more (a trend that was not as true back in the 90s and early 2000s)
3) There is a decent amount of luck involved in going 62-1. We've had a number of games that were closely contested that could have easily been losses.
The counter arguments to my points:
1) Even though the players coming up may not be quite as talented as our current generation of players, our current guys- particularly Lebron, Howard, Paul, Durant, Rose and Love may be back in 2014 and/or 2016 to give a veteran presence while we integrate a new generation. Also, there may be a Chris Paul or Dwyane Wade out there- two guys who weren't near the top of their high school classes- they just haven't 'blown up' yet.
2) Colangelo may have permanently made it cool to play for Team USA again and our subsequent generation of superstars may follow in the footsteps of Lebron and Co. by playing multiple times with Team USA over the course of many years.
3) Luck favors the prepared and we are scouting and arming our teams with more helpful info about our opposition than ever before. Plus, we have resources that other nations don't have in this area.
Other points: FIBA rules are slowly moving more towards NBA rules which favors our team, also, many of the other powerhouses- Argentina and Spain most notably- will most likely be on the decline as their key players are in their 30s.
So what do you guys think- will we see success at the same rate as the Coach K era?
Team USA has put a nice bow on its 'Coach K/Jerry Colangelo' era with a record of 62-1 overall, 3 golds and 1 bronze. It feels like the USA will be moving into a new era and so my question is, will these next two World Cups and Olympics be as successful as the Coach K ones?
My two cents- there are a lot of variables obviously with attempting to project that far out. However, my feeling is we will still be extremely successful and will/should be favored in every tournament for the next few years at least but matching the 62-1 record will be difficult. My reasoning:
1) We are in a second golden age of talent for our team, this generation of players that graduated high school from '02 to '07 are great- Lebron, Wade, Howard, Paul, Bosh, Durant, Rose, Love, Carmelo, D-Will, Eric Gordon, Igoudala etc. Being a pretty avid follower of recruiting rankings and the AAU/high school circuit I just don't see quite as much talent coming through the pipeline right now. The '08 and on classes haven't been bad by my measure but they aren't quite at the same level and that's including the '13 and '14 classes in high school right now.
2) Our core guys from the Coach K era- Lebron, Kobe, Carmelo, Paul, Wade really bought into the idea of playing multiple times with Team USA in order to establish more (a trend that was not as true back in the 90s and early 2000s)
3) There is a decent amount of luck involved in going 62-1. We've had a number of games that were closely contested that could have easily been losses.
The counter arguments to my points:
1) Even though the players coming up may not be quite as talented as our current generation of players, our current guys- particularly Lebron, Howard, Paul, Durant, Rose and Love may be back in 2014 and/or 2016 to give a veteran presence while we integrate a new generation. Also, there may be a Chris Paul or Dwyane Wade out there- two guys who weren't near the top of their high school classes- they just haven't 'blown up' yet.
2) Colangelo may have permanently made it cool to play for Team USA again and our subsequent generation of superstars may follow in the footsteps of Lebron and Co. by playing multiple times with Team USA over the course of many years.
3) Luck favors the prepared and we are scouting and arming our teams with more helpful info about our opposition than ever before. Plus, we have resources that other nations don't have in this area.
Other points: FIBA rules are slowly moving more towards NBA rules which favors our team, also, many of the other powerhouses- Argentina and Spain most notably- will most likely be on the decline as their key players are in their 30s.
So what do you guys think- will we see success at the same rate as the Coach K era?
Comment