Who's to Blame for Team USA's FIBA Flop?
Team USA finished fourth at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, after Germany eliminated it from gold (and silver) medal contention with a 113-111 win on Friday and Canada beat the Americans for Bronze in a 127-118 overtime shootout on Sunday.
Three Germans (Andreas Obst, Franz Wagner and Daniel Theis) had at least 21 points, while three others (Dennis Schröder, Moritz Wagner and Johannes Thiemann) reached double figures against USA. Then two days later, Dillon Brooks and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dropped 39 and 31, respectively, in the third-place game.
"These games are difficult," American head coach Steve Kerr said after the semifinal loss. "This is not 1992 anymore. Players are better all over the world. Teams are better, and it's not easy to win a World Cup or an Olympic game."
He's right. And the teams and players that challenged and ultimately upended USA deserve the bulk of the credit for this disappointment, but there were plenty of self-inflicted issues too.
Who's ultimately to blame for this team failing to make the championship game? Let's dive in below.
Jaren Jackson Jr.
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Shortly after the final buzzer against Germany sounded, Action Network's Matt Moore asked a simple question.
"Whose stock dropped the most from Team USA?" he posted. "[Jaren Jackson Jr.] or [Brandon Ingram], probably, with JJJ edging him out because of the DPOY award?"
It's hard to argue against the logic. Jackson is coming off a Defensive Player of the Year campaign. His Team USA teammates voted him the best player of this summer's training camp. He was the starting center tabbed to deal with international lineups that often feature plenty of height and bulk inside.
For the tournament, he averaged just 2.9 rebounds. That's dreadful, even for a player who's never been known to dominate the glass in the NBA. Seven of his teammates averaged more in these eight games.
And Jackson's inability to end opponents' possessions with a board contributed to how bad they were dominated inside over the back half of the tournament. In a pool-play loss to Lithuania, USA was outrebounded 43-27. The game before, a dicey win against Montenegro, they lost the rebound battle 49-31.
And JJJ didn't really make up for his struggles as a rebounder elsewhere. His 0.9 blocks in 16.5 minutes trailed Walker Kessler's 1.3 in 8.0 minutes. And while he shot well from the field, Jackson was 2-of-7 from three and never really moved the needle on offense.
In other words, the advantages of playing small and keeping him at center (he's typically a 4 in the NBA) didn't come close to outweighing the disadvantages.
Brandon Ingram
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Prior to the start of this tournament, ESPN's Brian Windhorst shared some insight on what Brandon Ingram's role was expected to be.
"I was talking to Brandon Ingram today." Windhorst said on The Hoop Collective podcast (at the 26:41 mark). "And when Steve Kerr and Grant Hill and Sean Ford, who's the general manager of the team, came to him, they said, 'We want you to play the Carmelo Anthony-Kevin Durant role, which is that stretch-4 guy who creates matchup problems because of your size,' and his game is similar to those two guys' games."
Kerr may not have expected him to fully replace the kind of production those legendary scorers did, but Durant has averaged 20.6 points in 31 appearances for the national team. Over his last 13 Team USA games, Anthony averaged 13.3.
Ingram, ostensibly filling the role those two did, averaged 5.7 points, shot 3-of-11 from deep and only attempted two free throws for the entire tournament.
It's not all his fault. Ingram is a ball-handler for the New Orleans Pelicans, and he often shared the floor with ball-dominant guards for Team USA. Prior to a move to the bench midway through the World Cup, he expressed some frustration with his role.
But he was brought in to be among the leaders of this team, and he never figured out how to shine in the role he wound up with.
His failure to live up to expectations put a bit more of a burden on Anthony Edwards, Mikal Bridges and Austin Reaves (the team's top three scorers) and contributed to USA's elimination.
Steve Kerr
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The Montenegro game exposed some pretty serious weaknesses with Team USA's roster and philosophy for this tournament.
The Americans pulled off the comeback win, but they were crushed on the boards, and Nikola Vučević went for 18 points and 16 rebounds against Team USA's undersized front line.
Kerr didn't adjust the next game, which was a loss to Lithuania in which USA was dominated on the glass and repeatedly scored on in post-up situations (often against guards who'd switched onto bigger players).
A 37-point win over an undermanned Italian team in the first knockout game papered over the issue, but Germany exposed it again.
And Kerr simply refused to change course.
"There were multiple games before this morning that strongly suggested the need for two bigs and the adjustment was never made, despite having the personnel to adjust," The Athletic's Tony Jones posted. "We deserved this."
Jones, a beat writer for the Utah Jazz, may have been alluding to the young Jazz center who mostly warmed the bench in this tournament. As previously noted, the 7'1" Kessler has more total blocks in the World Cup than Jackson, despite averaging fewer than half as many minutes.
And when Jackson is in the NBA, he's often playing alongside Steven Adams, who covers for a lot of his flaws. The Americans should have spent more time exploring the possibility of Jackson and Kessler being able to capture that same dynamic.
It wasn't just playing small that doomed this team, though. Throughout both the tournament and the games leading up to it, it seemed abundantly clear that the ball-moving styles of Reaves and Tyrese Haliburton were better suited for FIBA play than that of starting point guard Jalen Brunson. Another reserve, Paolo Banchero, is even more of a wing than Jackson in the NBA, but he brought more traditional big-man upside than JJJ in these games.
At some point, despite the possibility of ruffling some feathers, Kerr probably needed another adjustment beyond sending Ingram to the bench.
Finally, he may not have had enough time to implement the kind of ball-moving, read-and-react style of attack he has with the Golden State Warriors, but that's exactly what's needed in this arena. Team play reigns supreme in FIBA games, and Kerr simply allowed for too much American-style isolation.
Grant Hill
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To a certain degree, the architects of this roster have to accept some blame too.
The hands of Hill and Ford may have been tied by the fact that some of the biggest American stars weren't playing, but that doesn't completely absolve them from bringing a roster that most could've predicted would struggle playing this type of basketball.
As previously noted, there were too many players who rely on isolation and one-on-one basketball. There wasn't enough size. And there wasn't close to enough defense.
The organization certainly expected more of Jackson, but he can't be blamed entirely for USA giving up 113 points in a game with 10-minute quarters to Germany (or 110 to Lithuania and 127 to Canada).
There's some overlap between front office and coaching here, but these players were either incapable of or unmotivated to play championship-level defense.
Cohesion on that end of the floor is important. This point has been made in years past, but the rest of the world is just too good for the USA to throw together a collection of talent and hope to be able to develop that kind of chemistry right away.
The organization may need to implement a new rule for a multi-year or -tournament commitment from players. Or it may need to focus more on passing and defense in the team-building phase.
Somehow, the decision-makers have to assemble a more FIBA-ready squad.
The Stars Who Didn't Play
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There hasn't been much reporting on whether Team USA tried hard to go after the biggest American stars. Typically, the way this country has approached international play is to save the big guns for the Olympics.
And that may have been the idea all along heading into this back-to-back situation. With the World Cup this year and the Paris Olympics in 2024, maybe there was some implicit understanding between Team USA and American superstars that they'd be drafted next summer.
On Monday, the Athletic's Shams Charania reported on several big names, including LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry, who are "prepared to commit."
But it's hard to look at the absent talent from the NBA and think Team USA wouldn't have been better had they shown up.
Beyond those three named in Charania's post on X, Jimmy Butler, Damian Lillard, Anthony Davis, Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum, James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Jrue Holiday, Trae Young, Devin Booker, Paul George...and so on, and so forth...are all sitting at home.
I probably could've typed two rosters' worth of players who would've helped this summer.
And while there's value in getting younger stars (or potential stars) like Banchero some international experience, it's not the surest path to a title.
Canada, Germany and Lithuania
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Ultimately, what Kerr said right after the Germany loss is true (and probably as important as anything else written here).
These teams are good. Most have NBA talent. And unlike Team USA, those NBA players have spent plenty of time on the floor with their national teammates.
In America's three losses, Lithuania, Germany and Canada were clearly more connected on both ends of the floor. Their systems were run with precision. And their stars shined within those systems. They didn't have to do much painting outside the lines.
Players like Wagner and Schröder for Germany, Jonas Valančiūnas and Mindaugas Kuzminskas for Lithuania and Brooks and SGA for Canada, aren't intimidated by NBA talent. The non-NBA professionals that occupy the rest of those rosters clearly weren't either.
All three teams exploited American weaknesses and leaned into their own strengths, and they deserve credit for beating Team USA.
The World's Expanding Talent Pool (Ignited by the Dream Team)
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And those things don't just apply to the three countries that beat Team USA in 2023.
Serbia made the championship game without Nikola Jokić playing because Bogdan Bogdanović was excellent in leading a connected and tested group.
Slovenia has Luka Dončić. He didn't play in this tournament, but Greece has Giannis Antetokounmpo. Canada has Jamal Murray and Gilgeous-Alexander. Finland has Lauri Markkanen.
I could go on and on, but the point is that the top basketball talent in the world is nowhere near as concentrated in America as it was 30 years ago.
The 1992 Dream Team that captured the imagination of fans and prospective basketball players around the world probably deserve some of the "blame" for that. Former commissioner David Stern's efforts to internationalize the game helped too. Front offices who dedicated resources to finding talent outside the United States certainly have something to do with this.
Whatever the driving cause, some combination of the above has made it significantly more difficult for American NBA players to win high-level FIBA tournaments.
