Tuesday, 08.08.2006	posted by Georges Eddy 14:37 am
Category: FIBA World Championship

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OK, LET'S NITPICK A BIT

As a journalist, when everyone is saying and writing nothing but positive things about Team USA for instance, a little warning light goes off in my head!

We are basically devil's advocates and even if I've seen great improvement in the selection process and the participants attitudes,some aspects bother me a little.

I guess choosing sin city, Las Vegas, to kick off camp was to get the players to accept to swallow the bitter pill of seperation from their families and entourages as they prepare themselves like monks in a far away time zone.

So be it and I guess losing a few thousand together around the blackjack tables somehow builds camraderie among the players!

It"s good that the initial camp was longer than in the past but I've got a problem with the small number of friendly games and especally with the weakness of the opponents!

The one thing I agreed with Larry Brown on while preparing for Athens was to play against tough opponents in hostile settings.

The destruction of Puerto Rico in Vegas and the marketing lovefest vs. China do not qualify(their press won't generate nearly as many steals against top flight teams and they should be working on their own zone more for use against those strong opponents)!

Brazil should propose a tougher challenge but a diminished Lithuanian squad and a weak Korean team probably won't and there is a risk of arriving in Japan with an artificially inflated confidence level.

During this time Spain was meeting and beating Argentina, two teams the USA should have encountered along with France and Greece, two other serious contenders. Of course, scheduling is by no means easy and eliminating the last two players to get Team USA down to the required twelve won't be either!

Coach K will probably go for Battier over Bowen in the defensive stopper role because of age, size(rebounding) and free throw percentage while keeping an eye on Bejing.

The last player eliminated is anybody's guess between Jamison,Bosh and Joe Johnson.

The size and youth of Bosh and the polyvalence(he can play one to three) of Johnson make me think that Antawn will be the odd man out because Brand has the same type intermediary game but does it better and with D'Antoni's input, Team USA will probably need lots of guards to go to some small ball when they're in trouble!

Anyway this is what was going through my mind as I commentated the first two Team USA games for French TV.

Speaking of France, they've lost three preparation games in a row to tough opponents after winning their first four, so overconfidence won't be a problem for them. Turiaf from the Lakers has surprised observers by making the cut and even moving into the role of second- string center, a truly heart-warming story!