The U.S. Men’s Basketball Team handily defeated France yesterday or the day before or whenever the hell NBC taped it, as Kevin Durant and LeBron James made it look way too easy in a 98-71 victory. France’s bottle-popping point guard Tony Parker led us to believe that his team of baguette-bangers would give the Americans a headache, but with James playing in another universe right now, that doesn’t seem quite possible.
Unfortunately, instead of focusing on simply how well this team is playing – despite a few flaws that shouldn’t really factor into a gold medal victory – we’re still doing it. We’re still having this stupid ass conversation. Could James and the 2012 USA team defeat the 1992 Dream Team that featured the NBA’s greatest legends? The answer is no. Not because the Dream Team was better, but because we cannot manipulate time to get these two teams on the same court at the same time.
But that’s a fact, and facts are stupid when it comes to printing lazy journalism – like, say, suggesting that Michael Phelps used steroids. Hey LeBron, why don’t you tell us about your focus and intensity and how they relate to you being able to throw a missile bounce pass across the court for a perfect assist? Haha, just kidding. Give us some forced rhetoric instead.
“As a competitor you never want to say that you will lose, no matter who you are going against,” James said on ABC’s “Nightline.”
Okay, that’s great. That’s one of the reasons why so many of us have forgiven (or at least moved beyond) James’ perceived arrogance. So that’s all he had to say, or maybe he could just add something like, “But it’s impossible to ever know what would happen, because we can never actually play Michael Jordan and those guys in their primes, so we’ll just continue to respect and admire them as the team that set the gold standard.” Right?
“The ’92 Dream Team paved the way for all of us…”
Thank God. Perfect answer. Wait, no… End it there, LeBron, there’s nothing else to say…
“We understand what they did for our game, but we also are big-time competitors as well, so if we got the opportunity to play them in a game, we feel like we would win, too.” (Via the Detroit Free Press)
Whatever. Maybe being a billionaire athlete, LeBron knows something about the progression of time travel that we don’t. But as long as he keeps talking about, I’m sure the original Dream Team members are more than happy to keep talking about it, too.
Right, Magic Johnson?
“They know we will crush them,” Johnson said.
Hypothetical trash talk is the best. Anyway, here’s First Lady Michelle Obama giving the 2012 fellas a little “Good job” sugar.
