oh, i gotcha. you’re saying that even for the olympics the US only does 21 days, which is less than other teams do for random tournaments
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Yeah, the US team doesn’t play tournaments in non Olympic years like Eurobasket.
There’s no cohesion compared to some of these setups that have a ton of game reps.
Sorry yes I now see my wording was poor to say the least.
Yes, USA does not even practice as much as the other teams do for what is technically their 3rd biggest tournament. And they have 3 tournaments that they care about which means they get together most summers. France has been practicing for closer to 2 weeks from what I can tell.
Though I will say I don’t think the Euro teams hold the Olympics as any more important than the other 2 tournaments, which is part of it. That’s more uniquely American. World Cup has a better format with more good teams anyway so I get that
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Another difference is that European teams have been playing together for years so they’re already familiar and have chemistry. Not just the amount of time they practiced together before the Olympics.
USA just doesn’t care about anything except for the Olympics. I worry about the next Olympics because they’ll have the same issues and likely won’t have Steph, KD (maybe?) and LBJ bailing them out with their elite plays.
The next likeliest star to lead the team is Ant. The next wave is probably Cade, Flagg, etc. and to name a few. I guess you can place Dybantsa, Peterson and Boozer in that next wave, but we don’t know how they’ll fare in the NBA.
If I’m just picking current NBA guys for the 2028 Team USA:
(Near locks)
Tatum
Cade
Hali
Ant
Chet
Flagg
JJJ
(Maybes)
Brunson
J. Brown
Maxey
One or both of the Thompson twins
(Hopeful)
Holland II
Duren
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Lot of pistons 
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Well, that’s why they’re in the Hopeful category! That would sure be something. Duren at least has played with the team in camps but I doubt he’d make the squad.
And if Jerami Grant can make a team, there’s a decent shot for Ausar.
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Duren
Holland
Ausar
Cade
Ivey
Tolu Smith
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Just take the NBA team with the highest % of minutes played by American Nationals and add 4-5 guys to it.
I honestly don’t think it’s a bad idea
This team gets completely screwed.
Yeah, valid point as well
because the new guys coming in or cause they may not want that?
i assume because that franchise has a bunch of players with more miles on them than the rest of the nba?
Teams wouldn’t want to release their entire roster to the Olympics, especially if even fewer other teams had to release players.
I don’t know the details but I assume there’s some kind of limit and sign off process for who is released to play.
Yeah my assumption is the wild spike in injury risk and if nothing else added fatigue
Yeah I personally don’t really buy that cause guys are playing basketball regardless but I do buy the idea of the organization itself not liking it even if they are wrong…
the olympics is like 10 games if you count exhibitions. that’s not adding fatigue to an nba player and they can get injured any number of ways IRL
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I don’t believe there is at this point, though owners have suggested that before and I think owners and players have come to agreements before but don’t think they can truly stop anyone from what I know of
I just think that the model of “send the most American team with some others” is DOA if you are asking one team to have the majority of its rotation play an extra 10-15% of a season instead of spreading that burden around.
And obviously, players have to decide if they want to play too.
It also sort of defeats the entire point, I would say.