There are the Olympic basketball tournaments, and all the sideshows around them. From releases of sneakers to clothes with Dream Team or national team themes, to all the talk about what if the tournament becomes a U-23 showcase, it’s refreshing to actually sit back and watch the games themselves. New videos by Nike, which has contracts with all but one of the men’s players and several of the women, take us directly to the players’ point of view about what it’s like to play on the senior national team.
Entering the London Olympics, the men’s team was 122-5 in the Games, and you’ll hear a lot about the pride of playing with a tradition like that on the line. It sounds laughable a day after beating Nigeria by 83, but what they say about the world’s competition getting better is still true. The notion that the stars have bought in better to the philosophy of the collective was one of the main points of chairman Jerry Colangelo‘s remodel of the senior team in 2005, and seven years later, it’s much the same.
In the women’s insider video, Diana Taurasi, Tamika Catchings, Sue Bird and coach Geno Auriemma talk about much the same themes of the men: tradition, honor, country. The women’s team, in many ways, is even more impressive by making at least the quarterfinals of the last 11 world tournaments and being undefeated in the Olympics since 1992.
What do you think?
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