So... What's Going On With Team USA Basketball- [NOT GOOD].

It seems like every summer there's some sort of an international basketball event going on, but generally it's the European countries that people are watching and talking about. Basketball fans even in the US don't really seem to care about what's going on with Team USA unless it's either in the Olympics or the World Cup. The World Cup qualifiers don't really seem to matter because all that teams need to advance to the actual World Cup in the Americas is finish in 4th place at the minimum. And that's something that even a group of G League players as long as they're Americans can do for the country because the competition in North and South America isn't really that great compared to Europe. And then for the AmeriCup, it's just not viewed as a tournament that matters to the US anymore. It used to be that even NBA superstars would join the team for the AmeriCup, but nobody really cares about that today. Of the last 6 tournaments, the US has only won gold once. In 2017 when the US did win it all, the MVP was a guy named Jameel Warnie. As an avid basketball fan, I have never heard of him before. So the point here is that the US isn't really that interested in taking the World Cup qualifiers or the AmeriCup seriously, and I mean I could see why. But I still think it's worth it to look into the 2022 roster members of the teams and how successful their runs have been. So who are these players that are representing Team USA and why aren't they winning as much as Team USA typically does? Well the first thing that I noticed when I looked at the roster pictures for these teams was that there were 2 main groups of players. The first group of players were the kinda older, washed up guys who haven't played in the NBA in quite some time. There were actually no players on either roster that were at the time signed to an NBA team. So starting with the World Cup qualifiers roster, and with the older guys, you had players like John Jenkins, Langston Galloway, Joe Johnson, Isaiah Thomas, and Tariq Black. Now not all of these guys played throughout the entire run. Guys like Isaiah Thomas came in and dropped a lot of points, but he only played in 2 games. Same thing with Joe Johnson, but he came in and put up 16 a night on 54% shooting. Now Johnson is probably not an NBA player at this point, but at 41 years old, I gotta give it to him. I wouldn't be able to guess how old he was just by watching him play. He was pretty youthful with his movement, and to see him be one of the better players for Team USA at the age of 40 is quite incredible. John Jenkins was probably the MVP of the team. You might remember him for the 6 years he played as a bench player in the NBA, but he was actually number 5 in the whole tournament in scoring at 18 points per game, and he shot 54% from the floor. That was really it for the older players, and remember when I say old, I mean guys who are either literally old like Joe Johnson, or notable players who haven't played in the NBA in quite a while, like Langston Galloway is only 30 right now. But onto the G-League guys on the qualifiers team, and there were a lot of them, so I'll stick to the more well known players, but you had guys like Mack McClung, David Stockton, the son of John Stockton, Matt Ryan, and Jordan Bell. Now Mack McClung barely even played in the qualifiers as he suited up for a total of just 18 minutes, however David Stockton had a pretty big impact, averaging about 9 points and 5 assists. And then there was Matt Ryan, who played in only 2 games, but the new Lakers wing came in and went 9 for 18 from 3. So the qualifiers roster probably isn't the most exciting, but they have been pretty effective together. So far throughout 8 games, Team USA is 7-1, that one loss coming against Mexico. There are still 4 more games, but everything considered, I think this team will pretty easily qualify for the 2023 World Cup. Considering that, they only need to finish in the top 4 of the Americas to do so, and right now they are the number 1 seed. Now once the actual World Cup comes, I'd be surprised to see any of these guys still on the roster, which is kind of sad because without them, Team USA wouldn't even be playing in the World Cup. So shoutout to them, they've had a really impressive run so far. And then onto the AmeriCup, how did the team do this summer and why did they not win gold? Well starting with the roster, and it was split the same way that the qualifiers team was, just with completely different players. For the older guys, they had Norris Cole, Jody Meeks, and Jeremy Pargo. Pargo is the least familiar player out of this group to most fans, he played 5 years in the NBA and in total 86 games, but Norris Cole and Jody Meeks are definitely more well known. Norris is probably most famous for his time as the backup point guard during the Big 3 era of the Miami Heat, and after his stint with Miami, he went on to play a few more years in the league, but by 2017, he had played his final NBA game. Since then, he's actually had a really good international career, and most recently with Team USA, he's been doing his thing contributing as the team's starting point guard. In the AmeriCup, in 6 games, Cole played 23 minutes a game, but he dropped 14 points per game which led Team USA, and he tagged along for assists, as he shot well over 50% from the field and 40% from 3. It was definitely nice to see him still playing quality basketball. Now as for Jody Meeks, many of you might remember him from his time with the Lakers, in 2014 with LA, he scored about 16 points per game on 40% shooting from deep. In case you're wondering, last year he played with the Raptors 9-0-5 of the NBA G League, where he shot an incredible 49% from 3 point range. At 35 years old now, Meeks is definitely in his twilight years, and he didn't have the best run in the qualifiers, making about 31% of his 3's, but I hope to see him around in the G League or somewhere else next year. And that was basically it for the older dudes in the AmeriCup, some of the G League guys Pat McCaw is a Warriors legend, and really just a legend in general for winning 3 straight NBA championships in his first 3 years in the league. He had that one major injury with the Warriors, and it's been hard for him to find his footing since, but he played in the G League last year, and his Delaware Blue Coats made it all the way to the finals. And you could definitely see that he's a good player still that brings some good defense. With Team USA, he only scored about 3.5 points per game, but he played really solid minutes because of the other things that he does, such as defense. Frank Mason III has only played 13 NBA games since 2019, though he did win the G League MVP in 2020, but he wasn't amazing in the AmeriCup, where he scored 7 points a night on 34% shooting. And so the question is, how did this team place in the tournament? Well, they weren't as successful as the World Cup team, who are currently the number one seed in the Americas. They first suffered a really disappointing 6 point loss to Mexico, but then they picked it up and won 3 straight games, however then they lost to the gold medal winners Argentina in the semifinals, so then they were placed into the bronze medal game where they beat Canada. So yeah, Team USA came out of the AmeriCup in 3rd place. But I think if I learned anything from researching these teams, it's that even if Team USA resorts to literal G League players, they're still going to be one of the top countries in the world in terms of talent. There are probably 50-100 point guards in the US better than Norris Cole right now, and even with him as the starting point guard, they were fine in the AmeriCup. And then in the qualifiers, John Jenkins was the top scorer for the US, most of you probably don't even remember him. Just goes to show that no matter how you twist it, the US is still the top basketball country in the world. And I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. But yeah, I hope you learned something about how Team USA looks in 2022. Thank you all for watching, have a blessed day guys, and I'll catch you all in the next one.