The summer is winding down, and things are about to get interesting for Team USA as they depart for Spain and push forward toward a much-anticipated matchup with the host nation in the gold medal game. Unless, of course, the United States and Spain do not make it all the way to the final. Hey, a Spain-USA gold medal game is NOT a certainty. Strange things can happen along the way. Ask Paul George, who is out for a year with a
Photo NBAE / Nathaniel S. Butler Chicago — USA Basketball held their first practice since the gruesome injury that befell Indiana Pacers All-Star Paul George. Practice was held at the Quest Multisport Center in Chicago, where the team will remain until after their exhibition game versus Brazil at the United Center on August 16. They will then travel to New York where they’ll continue training before exhibition games at Madison Square Garden versus the Dominican Republic (Aug. 20)
In the two-plus decades since the 1992 Olympics, the Dream Team has been celebrated and romanticized. References to it are wistful and reverential. The Dream Team represents perfection. In the basketball world, it was the greatest. How easily we forget that the basketball power structure in the United States thought the idea of having NBA players in the Olympics was repulsive. At the 1989 vote in Munich to allow NBA players in the Olympics, the U.S. organization (later USA Basketball), which
Thursdays on Twitter are typically when everyone posts pictures from something from their past. The trend is called “Throwback Thursday” or “#TBT.” NBA athletes are not excluded from participation, as many often post old photographs, sometimes from their childhood, high school or college. Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love, who is said to be joining the Cleveland Cavaliers as soon as Andrew Wiggins is eligible to be traded on August 23rd, posted a photo from his high school days. Just prior to the big
Mark Cuban has never been one to bite his tongue, and in the wake of the devastating injury to Indiana Pacers star forward Paul George on Friday night, likely ruling him out for the entire 2014-2015 season, Cuban had some words for the public on the makeup of international play, namely the IOC: [Read more…]
Paul George was used to playing in an NBA arena. Unfortunately, the Thomas & Mack Center is not an NBA arena, and it did not have an NBA-type basket stanchion at both ends of the court. Bobby Gonzalez, the former Division I NCAA coach at Seton Hall and Manhattan, was at Friday night’s Team USA scrimmage in Las Vegas when George suffered his gruesome broken leg injury. In this interview with Howard David on ESPNRadio in New York, Gonzalez describes what he
LAS VEGAS – Team USA’s training camp ended disastrously with the gruesome leg fracture suffered by Paul George. Team leaders Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski postponed indefinitely any decisions on the makeup of the roster, which was the right thing to do. For the time being, our thoughts and prayers should be with Paul George and his family. With that being said, the U.S. national team will eventually move forward. And after having been with them for a week, up close and
On a day as somber as Friday, August 1, it’s hard to focus on anything but the tragic incident involving Paul George. One of the league’s premier players suffered a gruesome leg injury that shook the association at its core. When something like this happens, it’s hard to do anything but offer support. Regardless of how hard it may be, it is necessary to look forward and acknowledge that this impacts more than just George and the Indiana Pacers. The NBA will be altered