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WOJ: FIBA and USA Basketball have become little more than a Duke facade

RollWave35

RollWave35

#KeepPounding
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WOJ goes hard after USA Basketball and Coach K.

Outside of Derrick Rose using FIBA as a Double-A rehab assignment and some sportswriters beefing up on Marriott points for post-summer vacations, this tournament was a waste of everyone's time and resources. They used to call it the World Championships. Now it's the World Cup of Basketball. This is certain: It has outlived its usefulness for the NBA, and owners and executives will be wise to petition FIBA to reshape the future of international basketball.

As one GM told Yahoo Sports, "[Outside of the U.S. team], there's more talent and more interest from basketball fans in the NBA summer league than this event."
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As much as ever, USA Basketball has been co-opted into a Krzyzewski leverage play for the Duke Blue Devils. If that doesn't rile Kentucky's John Calipari, wait until the Duke coach is credited for DeMarcus Cousins' maturity with the Sacramento Kings this season.

The end's coming for USA Basketball's grip on the game in the States, but once change goes into effect come the 2018 World Cup, it won't matter much to Krzyzewski anymore. He still has two full summers of USA Basketball access left to him, and that'll make it a full decade of control. As one Duke alumnus would tell you: There is a USA Basketball storefront selling patriotism and duty with a backroom reality that peddles the Blue Devils and Nike swooshes.

When Team USA goes to the U.S. Military Academy to practice on its pre-tournament tour, guess what the stories are: Krzyzewski returns to his West Point roots. There's Coach K with the cadets. There's Coach K in the mess hall. There's Coach K teaching those rich NBA players about sacrifice and selflessness. People call Calipari the greatest self-promoting coach of his time, but Krzyzewski doesn't get nearly the credit due him.
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Krzyzewski never violated an NCAA rule when he climbed aboard a flight, flew cross-country and addressed the 2013 under-19 USA Basketball national team at its Colorado Springs training camp. He addressed players in a group, and talked to them individually, sources told Yahoo Sports. For the record, Krzyzewski is USA Basketball's senior national coach and the visit gave him an opportunity to personally welcome those young men into the program's feeder system.

Well, the trip did something else, too: It gave the Duke coach unfiltered access to two of the best high school players in the nation. Florida's Billy Donovan was the under-19 head coach. Virginia's Tony Bennett and VCU's Shaka Smart were his assistants. They probably didn't need Krzyzewski's voice, but he probably didn't ask their permission, either.

The roster of college stars happened to include two 17-year-old prep phenoms: Chicago's Jahlil Okaor and Houston's Justise Winslow. When Krzyzewski makes his triumphant return this week, two freshmen stars will be awaiting him on Duke's campus: Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow.
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Full column: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba-ne...s-showcasing-only-duke-s-coach-044717393.html
 
Meh is right. As far as the competition angle, the same writers will be bringing the pitchforks and torches when we're back to sending college kids to these things and we're finishing anywhere but first. We've been riding this rhetoric cycle ever since the Olympic disaster of 1988.
 
Did the article comment any further on how Donovan, Bennett, and Smart were spending tons of time coaching actual high school prospects? I mean I hate K and all, but it's funny to talk shit about K while those others are actually coaching them. I wish we could have a coach doing awesome things like that.
 
I forget, we we all all super pissed off when Skip did those military coaching things>?
 
I do remember we were super happy when Manning was named as an assistant for an under something team.
 
The end's coming for USA Basketball's grip on the game in the States, but once change goes into effect come the 2018 World Cup, it won't matter much to Krzyzewski anymore.
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I assume this is in reference to something official occurring over the next few years?
 
I don't really understand this article. The NBA players choose for themselves to play. They're doing it for their own benefit and enjoyment. The NBA doesn't really have the right to "pull their stars".

The fact that it benefits K isn't some evil underhanded ploy. Of course it benefits him in his recruiting -- what's wrong with that? He sinks a lot of time into USA basketball; any recruiting benefits he gets out of it are deserved. Can't believe I'm defending K.
 
This is a really loaded piece. I wonder who wanted it out there. Not buying that Woj wrote this without an agenda. It's too targeted.
 
ArlingtonDeac said:
I wonder who wanted it out there.
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Boeheim is now saying it was Calipari who was the one complaining about K getting access to the young players through Team USA.
 
Imagine that. Coach Cal, the biggest complainer in the business, complaining about something that he no doubt covets.

Somebody has to coach the fucking team.
 
It's hilarious, because Cal coached the Dominican national team so he could land Karl Towns.
 
RollWave35 said:
Boeheim is now saying it was Calipari who was the one complaining about K getting access to the young players through Team USA.
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one snitch snitches on another snitch. somebody cry for these guys, please.
 
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