Team USA's Olympic Basketball Dominance

Wed Aug 10, 2016 18:18:26PM
Categories: Olympic Basketball

Team USA's Klay Thompson dunking during 2016 Rio Olympics practiceBy: AgĂȘncia Brasil Fotografias

From the very, very start of the Summer Olympic games, the one in Berlin in 1936, Team USA has just owned everyone in basketball, on both the men's and women's side. There have been 18 summer Olympics since that time, and Team USA men's basketball has won the gold 14 of those 18 times. That's about 78% of the time. After this Olympics in Rio, it'll undoubtedly be 15/19. Or said another way 6 of the last 7, since 1992. (the sole loss in the last 24 years coming from the '04 Athens' game, where we got the bronze).

At what point are they going to change this event, reformat it or whatever, so we aren't so dominant in it? It's basically not even fair any more. Perhaps it never has been. And that's not to say that the US of A is the only one capable of farming the best basketball players in the world.. I guess every country as their few choice sports they nationalize (NBA/WNBA), and then in turn become dominate worldwide in. We also would likely dominate in American football if it were an olympic sport, but are world's away from winning 70%+ of Olympic Soccer, for example.

Women's b-ball is just as absurdly dominate, to get back to it. Let's see, their event in the Olympics started at the 1976 Montreal games. That's a total of 10 Olympics for them, for basketball. And their overall record for gold is 7 out of 10. Really after Russia won the first 2 in '76 and '80 (sorry, I mean back then it was the Soviet Union), it's been all women's Team USA, minus the single loss in 1992, when the Unified Team (EUN) won it, and we got bronze.

At least we can almost guarantee Team USA gets 2 golds to add to the stack every 4 summers. Though I would like these games to be more close(ish). It's not even entertaining to watch the men win by an average of double digit points basically every single game, beyond bragging rights, I guess?

Should anything be done about this imbalance of talent, stacked in our favor? Or do you simply enjoy it?

Apparently dominance gets.. rewarded, with luxury. Check this out:

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61 0 4 0 0 Colorado Springs, CO
 

2775 days ago
Replies (2)
The NBA has 46 of its players participating in the Olympics. The San Antonio Spurs leads the way with five players -- Manu Ginobli (Argentina), Tony Parker (France), Pau Gasol (Spain), Patty Mills (Australia), and Patricio Garino (Argentina). None of the Spurs players are playing for Team USA. The problem is that Team USA still has 12 of the 46 NBA players. Still they only beat Australia by 10 points and Serbia by three. Upsets can be had by these other teams.