Greatness is subjective!

You may call this a flat and maybe even a false statement and I might agree with you! The NBA is widely considered the best basketball league in the world, and players like Lebron James and Stephen Curry are generally considered great by all fans. Indeed, for the Paris Olympics, team USA put together a squad of the best American NBA athletes and went on to win the gold medal, fulfilling the expectations that were put on it from the time the team was announced.

I would argue that despite winning the gold, they underperformed! Many have referred to this team as the best national side ever put together, with more talent than even team USA’s 1992 “Dream Team”. So, why were they down 13 points against Serbia going into the 4^th quarter? Why did they struggle so much against Germany and France?

The other national teams mentioned above have multiple solidly-in-the-NBA caliber players. However, of Serbia, Germany and France’s rosters, only one player’s level of play and consistency can be compared to most athletes on team USA’s roster: Nikola Jokic. While the Germans boast NBA talent like Schroder and the Wagner brothers, and the French, Wembanyama and Batum, we can argue that every player who played significant minutes for team USA is currently one of the top 3 in the NBA at their position (and perhaps even the ones that did not get much playing time). In other words, they should have been winning their games easily (“haut la main” as the French say). This was far from the case!

As we saw with team Canada, who had Olympic finals aspirations, these “excellent” NBA athletes’ talent does not necessarily translate to FIBA (International Basketball Federation) rules. Where the NBA is known as a “start-and-stop” league with large amounts of fouls, FIBA games are generally more fluid and refs less likely to blow their whistle. This did not pay off for the Canadians who had a large portion of their offensive possessions end with a prayer (aka a shot that has little to no chance of going in), where the shooter is looking to draw a foul more than score the basket. This strategy pays off in the NBA as very little contact can be deemed a foul, but in FIBA you must earn your free throws, and a lot of these guys were not ready for that.

When NBA players, who have exclusively played in the USA (both in NCAA and the NBA) are presented with new, mildly different rules that favor good defense, they appear beaten or outshined by contenders that the NBA would rank much lower than them. Despite team USA winning the competition, the European teams did not seem outmatched at all, and appeared to have a much better shot at gold than team Canada. Many of these players may be considered top tier in the NBA but put them in a league that defends and where superstars do not receive preferential treatment by way of fouls being called in their favor, and it’s a different story!