Team USA’s victory over Serbia in the Gold Medal match was not a surprising one. Armed with the premier talent in the world, Team USA is expected to dominate the Olympics every four years. This summer, the squad came close to being upset multiple times, but ultimately cruised to another perfect finish.
In fact, Team USA did so well that according to Jerry Colangelo, the chairman of USA Basketball, one Rio official told him the US should only use four players in the interest of competitiveness.
Following from Colangelo’s appearance on SiriusXM NBA Radio:
“I’m not going to apologize for our success. What I’d like is – I’m a lifer, I’m a basketball guy – I want to see basketball raised everywhere. I want to see it grow, I want to see everyone become competitive. But we’re not going to apologize for our success. It’s up to those countries to get their own circumstances in place and to be competitive.
“And I did have an official, not to be named, when I was on the court, you know, after the gold medal award, and this individual (who’s up there) said, ‘They can’t compete with you. Maybe next time you should only use four players.’ I bit my tongue, I didn’t say anything.
“We would like to say that we’re good winners and we’re not sore losers but the point is we’re not losing.”
Saying “we’re good winners” immediately after arrogantly (but rightly) claiming that Team USA is miles ahead of the competition is certainly something.
Jerry Colangelo is not wrong, per se. In order to have a more competitive Olympics, other countries need to be better. But it’s not as though Team USA were not challenged in these Olympics. Australia, Serbia, and Spain all gave the team a run for their money. In four years, some of the competition could be even better.
Nevertheless, seeing Team USA play four on five would be pretty entertaining.
