USA Basketball

Look out, 2012 London Olympics. USA basketball may have problems trying to stay at the top of the basketball world. It all starts with team management of its players. Basketball stars such as Lebron James and Dwayne Wade are backing off their commitments of playing extended time for US basketball because of summer plans. Why are they doing this? The USA basketball program is not programmed for team dedication such as the overseas European basketball teams and the South American teams like Argentina. The US basketball program is used to having its own way in every way, shape, and form. They're not used to having team-oriented players who are able to do multiple things on a basketball court such as competing on every single basketball possession. That's what team USA basketball is unable to do. They were forced to compete against the opposing teams who were able to scrap, hustle, score, rebound, play pressure defense, and perform all the intangibles it takes to win games. So when Lebron James says he can't commit to a three-year playing spurt for team USA at the London Games commenting that he has summer plans, it just goes to mean that American basketball players have a lot more on their minds than just playing basketball and making drastic improvements on their games unlike the American counterparts who are dedicated to hone their basketball skills , countries such as Lithuania, Argentina, Spain, Puerto Rico, etc. USA basketball director Jerry Colangelo made an edict and he should not back down from it. His edict required that all basketball players who played previously for him would continue since 2009 until 2012 at the London Olympics. He should stay with this plan and propose that all players who play for Colangelo follow through on their 3-year commitment. This is why USA basketball isn't as dominant as was before in the past in the era of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan. You can't put together star players who have complete and pure basketball skills and blend them together, making them work alongside each other. You need your players to understand the coach as a person, make the players relate to the coach as a person, they will understand why the players need to make this three-year commitment. USA basketball doesn't think like that. The thinking throughout these basketball years in the United States is that you can put together a group of NBA stars and win Olympic games and the gold medal without team cohesiveness and chemistry. Boy, has that thinking gone wrong. If anything, USA basketball is totally dysfunctional because of these types of unwarranted behaviors that nobody expects to read about. Nobody wants to hear about Lebron James or Dwayne Wade taking summer breaks off from basketball. They want to hear about their basketball heroes go to the training room and work on their skills.