Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Our Olympians - By the Numbers?

So the US Men's Olympic Basketball team won today, beating Germany on a last-second three by Allen Iverson, after which they celebrated like they had won, well, the Gold Medal. I guess it's good to see some emotion displayed by the players. I mean, when you get pummelled by Italy, and it's not a soccer match, there's a problem. I also saw the first half against Puerto Rico last weekend, in which they jumped out to a 10-0 lead, and at the half still lead by only ten points. There's really no reason to believe that this team is going to win the Gold Medal, but that's not what is bothering me. OK, that's wrong. It does bother me, but there's something else bugging me too, and that is the coverage of these games.

There isn't any place, anywhere, on the internet where I can find a box score for any game the USA has played so far. Now I know they are only exhibition games, but I have a feeling that this is going to carry right through the summer games, and that would be awful. Isn't analysis of these games the best way to:

1. Evaluate Foreign Talent. There's clearly some Italians who can play a little. Wouldn't you have loved to have seen shooting percentages, assist/turnover ratios, or rebound numbers for those guys?

2. Analyze the USA's strengths and weaknesses. It's not enough to say that they can't shoot and don't hustle.

3. Place blame for our failures, or credit for our successes. If Dwyane Wade throws six balls away in the first half, I want to know about it. If he has eight assists and one turnover, I want to know that, too.

If anyone finds any more info, let me know. In the meantime, I'm probably going to do more analysis of at least our team, because the Olympics is the most important thing going on in basketball right now. So if you're looking for some Olympic coverage, check back in soon.

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