Posted on 07/11/2021 11:36:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
LAS VEGAS (AP) — This is not how USA Basketball expected to open its Olympic summer.
Nigeria probably didn’t expect it, either.
If there was any expectation of invincibility for the Americans heading into the Tokyo Olympics, it’s already gone — after Nigeria beat the U.S. 90-87 on Saturday night, an international shocker pulled off by a roster primarily filled by little-known NBA players that found a way to beat a group of All-NBA, All-Star and max-contract performers.
“We just wanted to compete,” said Nigeria’s Gabe Nnamdi, who goes by Gabe Vincent when playing for the Miami Heat. “We know what USA Basketball means around the world and what they’ve stood for for so long.”
The U.S. had lost 11 games before Saturday in major international play — Olympics and World Cups, mostly — since NBA players began filling the American rosters with the first Dream Team in 1992. None of those losses came against a team from Africa.
"I thought that the Nigerian team played very physically, did a great job in that regard and knocked down a lot of 3s,” U.S. coach Gregg Popovich said. “Give them credit.”
Nnamdi led Nigeria with 21 points. Caleb Agada scored 17 points, Ike Nwamu added 13 and Nigeria outscored the U.S. 60-30 from 3-point range.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
The Olympics ended when they went “pro”...
They do not represent me. In fact, they hate me. NOT. MY. TEAM.
Sports are hobbies. Anyone dumb enough to pay to watch people pursuing their hobbies should pay a dummy tax.
The Nigerians played like men possessed with White rage and triumphed over the NBA (Nothin’ But A-holes) players.
Here is a REAL American!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YAY!!
You just dashed the hopes of hundreds of thousands of wannabe rappers and future NBA stars everywhere!
I do not understand that. For years the only ones without pros were American teams.
The original Olympics were for the best athletes of then ancient World, not amateur. They were all professional warriors and paid assassins who fought for the highest dollar. in short, they were all professionally paid athletes.
Olympics should always be the best athletes, not the best college kids.
A mere 3-point difference between two teams with NBA/NCAA players—is it really that shocking?
The Americans were probably protesting slavery in Africa today.
But. . .I’ll bet they got millions of dollars from that deposed king’s son. . .
Anyway, we don’t have an Olympic team, we have a bunch of selfish and arrogant individual showboats that know nothing of teamwork.
Amateurism is a scam. It was created to keep the “deplorables” out of sports. If Jim Thorpe was a Boston Brahmin from Harvard, does anyone honestly think he would have been stripped of his medals?
Good
Awesome.
If only kneeling was an Olympic event.
Victory is sweet.
My brothers make me proud.
Oh, i am supposed to be ashamed?
Wokeness is so durn confusing.
Exactly. Amateurism was a way too keep the power of athletics in the hands of the College elites.
Jim Thorp thumped the system many, many, years ago.
Yeah, me too.
I’ve always enjoyed watching local high school sports, where I actually know the players - or at least their parents. At that level, I believe participating in sports is an extremely important part of development and culture.
At the college and pro levels, it is nothing but commercial entertainment - potentially lucrative for a few wealthy owners and for the small fraction of young men and women who make to those levels - but it has little redeeming cultural value to society.
Add to that the usual negative impacts whenever money and celebrity is involved - corruption, depravity and a sense of entitlement.
I wouldn’t be at all sorry of college, professional and even Olympic sports were to wither and die.
For those talented enough to compete at that level, there are far more important endeavors than breaking meaningless records.
Or protesting the laziness of Uighur slaves producing the Chinese products they endorse. Get those bums back to work!
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