Team USA roster construction

[yellowsub264]

Sorry if this is being talked about in another thread already. Barkley has come out and said the team lacks role players, and so far weve seen this team not exactly dominate. In your opinion, when it comes to role players, who do you think would have been a good addition to the team and who would you take off in order to balance the roster?

[JDR720]

i think more real role players would make the team better. right now everyone (or almost everyone, Barnes) is a star player trying to be role players, they dont know what they're doing.

types of role players? 3&D players.

Marvin Williams
Middleton
George Hill

would be some good additions

right now its (probably not accurate depth chart)

Irving-Lowry
George-Klay-DeMar
Durant-Butler-Barnes
Green-Carmelo
Jordan-Cousins

i would take out: Lowry, Carmelo and DeMar

I would add: Marvin, Hill and Middleton

then its

Irving-Hill
George-Klay-Middleton
Durant-Butler-Barnes
Green-Marvin
Jordan-Cousins

all 3 additions are good defenders, good shooters and can play multiple positions while not needing the ball.

[jc23]

The team looks like it was constructed by a 2k gamer. The majority of the players are stars who are use to getting their 20+ touches throughout a game. Add that to the fact that there is no true facilitator on the team and it's easy to see why we have struggled.

Replace half the team with college players and team USA would still be the most talented.

[TinmanZBoy]

its not a construction problem... it is how they play, how they fit their roles...
Previous dream teams (1-3) were all composed of star players, they did not have problems
it is just unfortunate that some star players nowadays don't have the basketball IQ that a star play is supposed to have, particularly some guards...

[Apollo64]

I would cut Barnes and DeRozan and get a couple of ballhandling guards in their place. You can't have enough of those in FIBA.

[JazzMan_OS]

I really wish my boy Hayward would have gone through with it and played in the Olympics. He would have been a perfect compliment to Melo and Kyrie. He doesn't need shots, and he can create for others, play great defense, and shoot at a solid clip.

Glad he's getting his rest and spending time with his family and his newborn child, though.

I would agree that George Hill would make a great addition as a three-and-D guard beside Kyrie.

Maybe throw in a defensive specialist like MKG, Tony Allen, or even a versatile forward like Jae Crowder.

I hope Team USA keeps this in mind when they aren't playing in a **** hole such as Rio, and invite guys like Kawhi, Hayward, and Crowder that offer more versatility and defense than what's currently on the squad.

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[Wargreymon]

Lol. Everyone dumping on the Raptors backcourt just cuz they play in Canada.

[lambchop]

I really wish my boy Hayward would have gone through with it and played in the Olympics. He would have been a perfect compliment to Melo and Kyrie. He doesn't need shots, and he can create for others, play great defense, and shoot at a solid clip.

Glad he's getting his rest and spending time with his family and his newborn child, though.

I would agree that George Hill would make a great addition as a three-and-D guard beside Kyrie.

Maybe throw in a defensive specialist like MKG, Tony Allen, or even a versatile forward like Jae Crowder.

I hope Team USA keeps this in mind when they aren't playing in a **** hole such as Rio, and invite guys like Kawhi, Hayward, and Crowder that offer more versatility and defense than what's currently on the squad.

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Guys like mkg and tony allen would be absolutely useless on offense though. Can't even make an open shot. They would eat up so much space and their defenders could just pack the paint, because there's no defensive 3 second violation.

Imo team usa is missing a second ball handler on the court, who can also pass. Guys like curry, bron, harden, lillard could really help out there.
Apart from that they need kd to step up. He has switched into WCF 4th quarter mode again.

[lambchop]

Oh by the way I think this team would play differently, if pop were the coach

[jpengland]

Been saying it for years. You need a balance with role players and high character guys.

As above, Hill would be a solid pick. In fact Hayward and Favors would work well too. Korver, Redick, Danny Green would be good wing fits.

Something like...

Irving/Hill/Livingston
Thompson/Redick/Korver
George/Hayward/Green
Durant/Green/Dudley
Favors/Noel/Plumlee

[JazzMan_OS]

Been saying it for years. You need a balance with role players and high character guys.

As above, Hill would be a solid pick. In fact Hayward and Favors would work well too. Korver, Redick, Danny Green would be good wing fits.

Something like...

Irving/Hill/Livingston
Thompson/Redick/Korver
George/Hayward/Green
Durant/Green/Dudley
Favors/Noel/Plumlee

I wanted to suggest Favors as well, but I figured my Jazz homerism would be too obvious.

But that truly would be a fantastic olympic team. It'd have everything you need. Only change I would make would be Cousins for Plumlee and Middleton for Korver.

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[Dupp]

The roster is honestly constructed really well. Swap Barnes for another point guard like wall or someone and there's no issues with the construction.

They have elite defenders and passers and obviously scorers. The team just isn't playing great together and their defense is average. Probably need more time together prior to the games.

Lowry/Klay/PG/Draymond/DJ - that's a mouth watering lineup in every way possible.

[Chuck Everett]

A lot of guys turned down Team USA invites including Hayward, Kawhi, Westbrook, Harden. I mean, some better players turned down going to Brazil. Not much you can do in that scenario. Team is still undefeated and everyone is mad. Weird.

[salmon]

USA needs another pg and a legit big, a 5 or atleast a 4/5...

Melo stays, he's carried them in patches, i think more accurately the NBA hype machine is coming undone and these quasi stars aren't as good as they are being promoted to be...

Lowry, Derozan, Butler, Cousins, Jordan, Barnes have all proven that at best they can be the 3rd best player on a NBA championship level team... So a team like Boston may have dodged a bullet by not being able to complete a trade for Butler or Cousins if they were doing with the mindset that they could ride either player into NBA championship contention...

[Winsome Gerbil]

USA needs another pg and a legit big, a 5 or atleast a 4/5...

Melo stays, he's carried them in patches, i think more accurately the NBA hype machine is coming undone and these quasi stars aren't as good as they are being promoted to be...

Lowry, Derozan, Butler, Cousins, Jordan, Barnes have all proven that at best they can be the 3rd best player on a NBA championship level team... So a team like Boston may have dodged a bullet by not being able to complete a trade for Butler or Cousins if they were doing with the mindset that they could ride either player into NBA championship contention...

That's silly. Stars are stars with the ball. In these international games they are always fish out of water because there is only 1 ball and typically about 10 stars. its got little to do with how they can succeed as featured stars back in the NBA.

And really the roleplayer statement is kind of off too. Barkley is right that every team needs them, but Team USA has rarely had more than 1 or 2 natural roleplayers on the team in past tournaments. The difference is that normally some number of star level players have taken it on themselves to roleplayer up and do the dirtywork. This current group was suffering before Argentina in part because nobody seemed really willing to do that.

Against Argentina though what you saw was the starters again fail, and again other than DJ, who didn't do much, nobody was roleplayering, and the Kyrie/Melo all offense/no defense show was intact.

But then off the bench George, Cousins, Butler and Lowry came in and were dominant, and a huge part of that was defense and physicality. George and Cousins provided the #2 and #3 weapons with Durant, but Butler and Lowry really deserve a lot of respect for coming in and playing like those roleplayers, and really digging in on defense.

With the Golden State trio nearly worthless this tournament, it really comes down to about half of Durant/Melo/Irving/Cousins/Deandre/Lowry/Butler/George/DeRozan digging in as roleplayers while the rest handle the scoring. Melo and Irving have really annoyed me the entire tournament by showing they are NOT going to do that. DeRozan isn't really good enough and seems to just be there to show off with garbagetime dunks. Durant is the key dominant international player who needs to be a great scorer. So its really up to Jordan, Cousins, Lowry, Butler and George to give this team enough toughness and defense every game. Against Argentina they did. If they can do it 2 more times, the U.S. wins gold. If they can't...

[90sgoat]

Hayward, Love, Parsons, Plumlee

[salmon]

USA needs another pg and a legit big, a 5 or atleast a 4/5...

Melo stays, he's carried them in patches, i think more accurately the NBA hype machine is coming undone and these quasi stars aren't as good as they are being promoted to be...

Lowry, Derozan, Butler, Cousins, Jordan, Barnes have all proven that at best they can be the 3rd best player on a NBA championship level team... So a team like Boston may have dodged a bullet by not being able to complete a trade for Butler or Cousins if they were doing with the mindset that they could ride either player into NBA championship contention...

That's silly. Stars are stars with the ball. In these international games they are always fish out of water because there is only 1 ball and typically about 10 stars. its got little to do with how they can succeed as featured stars back in the NBA.

And really the roleplayer statement is kind of off too. Barkley is right that every team needs them, but Team USA has rarely had more than 1 or 2 natural roleplayers on the team in past tournaments. The difference is that normally some number of star level players have taken it on themselves to roleplayer up and do the dirtywork. This current group was suffering before Argentina in part because nobody seemed really willing to do that.

Against Argentina though what you saw was the starters again fail, and again other than DJ, who didn't do much, nobody was roleplayering, and the Kyrie/Melo all offense/no defense show was intact.

But then off the bench George, Cousins, Butler and Lowry came in and were dominant, and a huge part of that was defense and physicality. George and Cousins provided the #2 and #3 weapons with Durant, but Butler and Lowry really deserve a lot of respect for coming in and playing like those roleplayers, and really digging in on defense.

With the Golden State trio nearly worthless this tournament, it really comes down to about half of Durant/Melo/Irving/Cousins/Deandre/Lowry/Butler/George/DeRozan digging in as roleplayers while the rest handle the scoring. Melo and Irving have really annoyed me the entire tournament by showing they are NOT going to do that. DeRozan isn't really good enough and seems to just be there to show off with garbagetime dunks. Durant is the key dominant international player who needs to be a great scorer. So its really up to Jordan, Cousins, Lowry, Butler and George to give this team enough toughness and defense every game. Against Argentina they did. If they can do it 2 more times, the U.S. wins gold. If they can't...

dude giving these overhyped quasi stars more of the ball doesnt make them any more legit!!