I love playing sport many sports, but my first love is basketball. Having watched Team USA, a heavily stacked team is there ever one, struggle to an eventual gold made me wonder if the profit incentives of the NBA and WNBA was leading to American basketball to struggle at the Olympics.
Basketball was invented in the USA, has by far the most valuable league, and by far the deepest pool of players in the world. But ever since the first “Dream Team” in 1992, the USA has struggled to win the gold. The original “Dream Team” dominated the Olympics. Led by Michael Jordan they often allowed their opponents to build large leads in the first half just to make it interesting. For most basketball fans this makes sense. The US has the most players and best league and best players. This has not really changed - and yet Team USA can no longer dominate its opposition, even with a team that includes some of the best players all time - Lebron, Curry and Durant. Some people argue that the rest of the world has caught up. If you look at the NBA MVP winners, non-US players have dominated in recent year.
However, even that argument seems flawed. Team USA had four MVPS on their team - Lebron, Curry, Durant and Embiid (he took US citizenship). I would argue that the NBA’s use of the defensive three second rule is one of the key reasons for their struggles. From 2001, it became illegal for a defensive player to stay in the paint, unless they were actively guarding someone. For those of you who don’t play basketball, the simplest defensive tactic is to place your biggest player right near the rim of the basketball to discourage players from driving to the basket. Olympic basketball has no such rule. Why did the NBA adopt this rule? Well the defensive three second rule makes it easier to score flashy dunks - particularly by small guards, which fans love to see. The Jordan years were boom years for the NBA but after he retired for the second time in 1998, the NBA went into a bit of a financial funk. To encourage more flashy play - they tried to make it easier to score - particularly flashy dunks.
In some ways I am arguing that other nations, particularly in Europe, play a more defensive game, and modern NBA players struggle with that. If we look at the NBA Defensive Player Of The Year Award, we find that there are plenty of European winners in recent years. All of the European winners were playing at the Olympics, but Jaren Jackson Jr, and Marcus Smart were not playing for Team USA. Note that Michael Jordan once won Defensive Player of the Year.
It will be interesting to see if the defensive three second rule is really to blame for Team USA underperformance at the Olympics. In 2013, the WNBA introduced the defensive three second rule.
The Women’s Team USA has been far more dominant recently in the Olympics, but in Paris nearly lost the gold medal match the French team.
The reality is that the NBA and the WNBA is NOT about making the Team USA Olympic gold medal winners. They are both profit seeking ventures, and hugely successful ones. From a profit seeking point of view, scoring is more highly valued than defence, and NBA teams and player rightly promote this aspect of the game. I expect to see Team USA (men and women) to continue to struggle at the Olympics.
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