Kevin Durant speaks on whether the World is catching up to USA Basketball

[qnsfinest]

Are we considering Canadian born players part of “the world”? Most, if not all Canadian born nba players played HS ball and or college in the USA.

But Until Greece, Serbia, Slovania, etc start producing 5 of jokics, lukas and giannis’s. They’ll never catch up to our talent.

 

[Nero Christ]

How does 5 players catch up to 100

You don’t. It’s a numbers game and outside of China and India…no one else can realistically compete.

African countries could compete too but there isn’t the economical and political stability to foster it.

 

[Miggs]

USA has 400m people and the most/best resources its hard to compete with those 2 things....

 

[In The Zone '98]

USA has 400m people and the most/best resources its hard to compete with those 2 things....

So mans from foreign gotta stop talking catch up cause they caught lightning in a bottle

 

[Miggs]

So mans from foreign gotta stop talking catch up cause they caught lightning in a bottle

They have the last 5 MVPs they can talk but the convo is convoluted....

 

[Rekkapryde]

4 of the top 5 NBA Cats are foreigners...I don't like that shyt, but it is what it is right now.

Jokic
Giannis
Luka
SGA


And Wemby is on the cusp


Top American right now is Tatum or Antman. We'd ALL take Wemby over either.

 

[xXMASHERXx]

Been saying it for years every time the Olympics come up and you have the clowns from Canada show up talking about America is done. Then we win the gold and they hide for another 4 years

 

[Flight]

It was looking dark for a minute cause the young talent wasn’t looking great in the pipeline as far as difference makers. But now we’ve got Cooper, AJ, Darryn, Cam Booz along with Ant, Paolo and some others. We will continue to dominate.

 

[SchoolboyC]

IT HASNT SIMPLY
BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO PLUCK
EACH SINGLE PLAYER FROM
A DIFFERENT COUNTRY.

SERBIA DOESNT HAVE ANY
OTHER PLAYERS COMPARATIVE TO JOKIC
AND NEVER WILL.

SAME GOES FOR GREECE/GIANNIS
AND ALL OF THESE OTHER COUNTRIES.

SO ITS NOT THE TOP END TALENT
ITS ONE SINGLE DUDE FROM
A WHOLE NATION AND THERES
ONLY ABOUT 5 OF THEM IN THE WORLD


​

And we’ve already seen it with other countries when you don’t have that pipeline to keep it going

Look how irrelevant Argentina became once the Manu & Scola generation aged out, look at Spain now that the Gasols/Rubio/Calderon generation aged out

It’s one thing to have great players for a moment, and another to consistently produce them

 

[Miggs]

It was looking dark for a minute cause the young talent wasn’t looking great in the pipeline as far as difference makers. But now we’ve got Cooper, AJ, Darryn, Cam Booz along with Ant, Paolo and some others. We will continue to dominate.

Future Raptor

Quick
Harper
Peterson
Barnes
Chomche

 

[No1]

4 of the top 5 NBA Cats are foreigners...I don't like that shyt, but it is what it is right now.

Jokic
Giannis
Luka
SGA


And Wemby is on the cusp


Top American right now is Tatum or Antman. We'd ALL take Wemby over either.

And they’re all from different countries and Shai was bred in the US at high school and college level. This is like pointing out the 5 Indian dudes who are the heads of major tech companies and acting like white people ain’t controlling Silicon Valley.

 

[Raw Sauce]

The dismissiveness is tone deaf

America used to say the same thing about Tennis 20 years ago... until Roger Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic showed up

Closing the gap in a 1v1 sport is easier than in a team sport

 

[Flight]

Future Raptor

Quick
Harper
Peterson
Barnes
Chomche

I need him somewhere where he can at least split handling duties. I don’t see it happening with that lineup brother

 

[UpAndComing]

Closing the gap in a 1v1 sport is easier than in a team sport

Basketball is as close to a 1v1 sport as you can get, with the star player/players having a big influence on the outcome of the game. All this talk of "the international game not being close" when you still had Team USA go down the wire with Serbia, and needed a non-native naturalized citizen in Embiid to go toe to toe with Jokic to squeak by to get a win

 

[Raw Sauce]

Basketball is as close to a 1v1 sport as you can get, with the star player/players having a big influence on the outcome of the game. All this talk of "the international game not being close" when you still had Team USA go down the wire with Serbia, and needed a non-native naturalized citizen in Embiid to go toe to toe with Jokic to squeak by to get a win

And yet, still not a 1v1.

A singularly talented and driven person can make it from anywhere in the world, but a system is needed to produce endless waves of top-level talent.

The world will be "close" when they can produce enough talent to split the rosters in the top league in the world. I'm not convinced it's when they send their absolute best playing as hard as they can to only occasionally make teams featuring some of our best players stop goofing off in games with unfamiliar rules.