You think the USA Olympic basketball team would be a bust if Tracy McGrady, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Karl Malone, and Vince Carter were on it?
Add Paul Pierce to that list and subtract the mailman and we would be winning by 30-40 pts a game, they guys we have now are all the second stringers..
All those guys, except for the last two, make their teammates better. Shaq is a very underrated passer, gets boards, McGrady has a great outside shot and is a very good passer, and Kobe, as much as I hate him, is lights-out from the outside, is a killer on defense, and wants to win more than anyone.
Did they not ask Ron Artest?
Subtract Vince Carter from that list, and you've got a winning team.
Perhaps. But we're still talking about guys who make individually more than entire foreign teams combined. Most of the players that they're facing couldn't even sit on an NBA bench, let along star in our league.
We are not losing because of a lack of talent.
The absence of Kobe, Shaq, Carter, McGrady et al is another symptom of the disease Dawkins is talking about.