The unequivocal grace and demolition of the New Orleans Pelicans’ young star make it clear that Team USA desperately needs their own Anthony Davis.
More shocking perhaps than any of the surprises for American athletes in Rio this summer (Michael Phelps’ continued dominance, Simone Biles’ near perfection, a 43-year old winning the cycling time trials on a rain-slicked course), has been the Men’s Basketball team’s struggle to compete against inferior competition. After overcoming a halftime lead against Patty Mills and Australia, Team USA again on Friday night struggled against a principled team led by a dynamite lead guard, this time Milos Teodosic. They managed to build only a five-point lead as the final minutes ticked by before coming away with the victory almost solely by luck’s blessing. Wing shooter Bogdan Bogdanovic missed two threes in the final seconds, allowing Team USA to skate by with a victory.
Australia’s best lineups boast four current NBA players (Andrew Bogut, Patty Mills, Matthew Dellavedova, and Joe Ingles) with a former NBA-er in David Andersen at the four and some high-caliber players off the bench in Aron Baynes and Cameron Bairstow. They should have the juice to play the Americans, and their rough, fundamental-focused style bodes well against the athleticism and shooting that Team USA relies on. The Serbian National Team, however, has no business being in a game late against the United States.
Boasting only rookie phenom Nikola Jokic and former NBA player Miroslav Raduljica as far as truly NBA-caliber talent (Nemanja Nedovic has yet to catch on with a team, and Bogdanovic had his rights traded to Sacramento this offseason, but has yet to come stateside), the Serbs somehow made a game out of the matchup on Friday. They made a clear effort to make the US work for every shot, fouling to prevent any open look. Raduljica brought a hard-nosed interior presence that presented a real match for the American bigs. DeAndre Jordan can’t stay on the court if the game moves toward a free-throw shooting competition, which it occasionally devolved toward.
Draymond Green’s value has been diminished in each of the last two games, in part due to the versatility he offers being offset by the other squads’ ability to play big and make it work. Small lineups have not worked for Team USA against teams whose bigs can rebound and defend well and when the American wings that those lineups rely on fail to create shots. Big lineups move Draymond back to the power forward position, where his switchability and aggression are supposed to add value. Yet Australia and Serbia both offset that added value by cutting well, quickening the pace of their half court offense, and getting into the paint to create plays.
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This is precisely where Anthony Davis could have helped. After surgery to fix the long-lasting impact of a torn labrum this offseason, Davis was forced to forgo his spot on the Rio roster. No one could have expected that the team would miss him this much.
Team USA has been trying to offset skill with oomph so far in Rio; it has worked in the win column of Group play, but won’t for much longer. There is now a blueprint to beat this squad: Play smart, make them work, and beat them in the foul and free-throw battles. Basically, the slower and sloggier the game is, the better your chances. Anthony Davis is here to grab that logic in the palm of his hands, giggle as it shrivels into his hands, and straight up juice it. Grab your cups.
Opposing guards who somehow prance their way into the paint would find seven feet of eyebrow, ready to swat the ball into Brazilian crowds. Kyrie Irving’s slip-and-slide pick and roll game is fun with Jordan rolling away from him; imagine AD’s offensive versatility in that spot. He’s a true triple threat from the top of the key. The international game is about intelligence and technical skill, or blowing that to smithereens if you have the ability to do so. Vince Carter had it. Michael Jordan had it. LeBron James and even Andre Iguodala had it. And I know Davis would too.
These slow, back-peddling international bigs are fodder for the flames of Anthony Davis’ star. Rio is where that star could have become a sun, the center of America’s basketball Milky Way. Sure, Miroslav Raduljica had himself a nice little game on Friday night. Not so, if Davis is offsetting strength and grit with poise and athleticism, eating nice little games for breakfast.
Davis’ dominant combination of physical freakishness, mental focus, and passion are the little qualities that take performances like the USA’s on Friday from disappointing to victorious. Some guys just have that. Without intimating that the bigs on this roster don’t have those qualities, we can appreciate that Davis’ combination of all three is about as destructive as it gets. Allowing him to exist solely within that limited role, as playing with a team full of All-Stars generally does, is the perfect environment for him to blast off.
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International basketball is fun for a variety of reasons, and a lot of them are what make it possible and interesting when one or two opponents get in the way of the Americans’ path to gold. But it’s also fun to watch what happens when a freak like Anthony Davis steps in and breaks our ideas of how it all should work. Right now, Team USA is lacking a guy like that. And it might be what stops them from bringing home the gold.