Now That You Told Me

You people exhaust me sometimes, especially when I'm suffering from stomach flu and dementia on my anniversary.

Here are a few thoughts I wanted to get down hard, after yesterday's feelings-gasm, the sort of post that makes everyone angry and really only serves as catharsis for yours truly at the exact moment it happens. Then regret, and defensiveness, and asking, "how could I have done better?" So here are some official FD Team USA 2010 talking points:

1. We were going to win anyway, so it didn't matter who we played. Team USA ran away with all but one game they played. Does that show that Coach K is that perfect? That this particular group was positioned just so to run away like clockwork? Sorry, Craig from High Point, it's proof that (as milaz sort of put it) America is the world's greatest except for when we aren't. Look at the rhetoric. We went from "FIBA-style pros" to changing what that meant, to deciding to just screw it all and make no illusions about going with athleticism and length. Like I said, is anyone saying "I told you so?" This is hollow, and boring, and the Worlds only matter this year because Nike told us they did, and because in a far-off galaxy failing to win could have kept us from the Olympics.

So fine, Coach K knows it all. But he didn't have much of a tall order here. I mean really, he put in Love for one game and got a double-double. Same for those times Eric Gordon snuck in. He didn't build those "secret weapons," they were stashed away on the bench. I gues it's cool that everyone wasn't going for self, but playing together is the new individual glory. Didn't anyone catch LeBron, Kobe, and Durant all agreeing on this in the last years? It was SO too easy, I'm not exactly inclined to think this required every single bit of his coaching wherewithal to put it all together. After all, one game of mortality does not a challenge make. Which leads me to . ..

2. As far as Positional Zaniness is concerned: Fool's gold, I say! Granted, my line-up was overly traditional. I guess the pick of Curry at point probably either trying to confuse people or make up for my past hatred of him. Westbrook probably was the guy. Maybe even, as much as it pains me to say it, better than Rondo for it. But what I would like to see from basketball—and when there's a non-stop blowout in the offing, I will stand up and talk about the style I like to see—isn't lots of a multi-skilled guys reduced to athletic role players who orbit around Durant. Really torn on Odom. I really underestimated his value, but really, hasn't Odom's basketball genius been in decline since he came to the Lakers? That was my point about so many other Odoms. Lamar Odom, doing dirty work? For that I would rather see Kevin Love! Andre Igudala was, I repeat, the only guy who really managed to sublimate his game and come out on the other side a more interesting player.

3. Kevin Durant is amazing. That cannot be denied. Really, though, did you ever see a more contrived story arc than this one? I didn't need FIBA to show me that KD can work wonders. I've seen it in the pros. I know he was treating it like any other high-stakes competition, but for anyone who NOW believes him to be up there with LeBron and Kobe, well, hold your horses until you've watched him in the NBA. I mean, did you see dude in the Goodman League back in 2008? HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!!

4. By that same token, does this officially mean that Danny Granger stinks?

5. And yeah, the Rondo thing did leave the worst taste in my mouth.