On the Conclusions of Self-Loathing Americans

Is Kobe Bryant, the reigning league MVP of the NBA, the Achilles heel of United States Men's Basketball Team?

As the United States men’s basketball team continues its quest at reasserting its global preeminence, one poorly challenged fallacy has permeated the conversation surrounding Team USA’s poor play in recent international tournaments: simply, the gap has closed between the talents of American basketball players and those of the rest of the world. This is an especially popular claim among those with dubious credentials to merit respected sports opinion –- arguably similar to my own -– and self-loathing American tendencies, such as NPR’s single sports correspondent. Even the highly qualified, America-loving Michael Wilbon has taken the position that the world has largely caught up.

Dissention to this opinion has largely rested on a defense of willful arrogance, even among some of sports journalism’s most respected members. Wilbon quotes his television sparring partner Tony Kornheiser as believing that the team’s path to Olympic victory this month is as simple as saying, “We’re back. We win.” Dan Shaughnessy reiterated this sentiment of unqualified supremacy on ESPN’s Rome Is Burning arguing that since basketball was created in America, Team USA will, therefore, win the gold medal this year.

Of course, that’s both logically and historically untrue. Since America last sent basketballers to the Olympics, they finished third, the first time the United States men’s basketball team did not return a gold medal since NBA players represented the country and only the third time in the sixteen Olympic basketball tournaments. The writing was on the wall even before the Athens Olympics, as team finished sixth in the 2002 FIBA World Championships. They also lost to Greece in the semi-final of the 2006 World Championships.

Nevertheless, this team ought to win the gold medal because has the best players in the world. Perhaps only Dirk Nowitzki, Yao Ming, and Manu Ginobili could even make the United States’ team. None would play among its starters.

Since 2004, USA Basketball has sought to address the apparent primary problem that a cast of all-stars practicing together for a month before the tournament does not constitute a team at all. It required a commitment of three years in the off-season by players in order for them to be eligible to compete in the Olympics. It sought to add players familiar with serving as backups professionally to be its own backups – in reality, though, only Tayshaun Prince fits the criterion.

The team’s performance has been generally promising hitherto, beating host China and a respectable Angola by 31 and 21, respectively, leading late in the 4th quarter of the latter by 33. But it’s clear now that if the United States’ team has any remaining deficiencies, it’s the relative advantage international teams enjoy of a familiarly shorter international three-point line (20 feet, 6 inches internationally; 23 feet, 9 inches in the NBA). Anyone who has watched either of the United States’ first two games has seen an overwhelming American performance kept close early and prevented ultimately from becoming a Dream Team-esque evisceration by the net-blazing three-point shooting of the Chinese and Angolans relative to the Americans.

After two games the United States’ team’s shooting percentage is a mere 26.7% (12-45). China and Angola combined for a 32.8% (19-58). That difference probably doesn’t sound many alarms; both China and Angola cooled off considerably in the second half. Consider, though, those stats against the teams’ field goal shooting efficiency (minus three-point shots): for the Americans, a 68.8% percentage; for its opponents, 39.2%.

Team USA’s opponents rely on what amounts to a long “mid-range” NBA jump shot, long since interred in the NBA playbook. In fact, many American coaches teach players explicitly not to take a long jump shot; rather, if they find themselves lingering beyond twenty feet, to step back behind the three-point arc and allow for a 50% return on successful attempts. The shot that is two or three steps farther forward is the international three-pointer, which players have been discouraged from taking and practicing for years. Furthermore, it would seem that, insomuch as adjusting to the international line is difficult, perhaps only Michael Redd, renowned for his “natural” shooting ability, would seem particularly suited for an agreeable transition; he is the team’s only “pure shooter” (please forgive the sports clichés). However, Redd presently averages only 13.5 minutes per game, much of which has come with the game’s outcome already determined.

That said, the team’s apparent disadvantage would be completely erased statistically if Kobe Bryant had been disallowed from taking any of the fifteen three-point attempts in the first two games. Without his shots, the team would have shot more efficiently than its opponents, 36.7% (11-30). Leaping to the assumption that this team shoots international three-pointers worse than those in the NBA may, therefore, be a bit irresponsible.

Nevertheless, it is clear that if teams with only a fraction of the talent of the United States squad will be able to defeat Team USA, this year, it will not be because they enjoy superior camaraderie and cohesion, as in prior disappointments, but because they enjoy an advantage -- systemically or on that given day -- at three-point shooting.