Matt Yglesias

Who Watches the Opposition?

Greece has a very good basketball team. They defeated Team USA in the 2006 World Championships and regularly contend for European championships. They also only feature one player who’s ever been in the NBA, and he was only around for one season in which he barely played. In other words, they’re both a tough matchup and feature talent the American players aren’t familiar with. Under the circumstances, and since the American team just so happened to be in Beijing but not playing a game at the exact same time Greece was facing off against Germany, you might think it would be nice to go to the game and get a sense of how they play. But in fact:

The Americans who were on the 2006 team that lost to Greece in the semifinals of the World Championship will be extra motivated, although they haven’t been motivated enough to come to the arena early and scout their opponent with their own eyes — with the exception of Kobe, who sat next to Coach K in the stands for the Greece-Spain game Sunday.

“I haven’t seen them play since they beat us,” James said. “If Kobe was there [for the Greece-Spain game], we were all there, because he’s one of our leaders, and he’s going to share all the info he has.”

To me, this doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence. I’m confident that we’ve assembled the best squad of players out there, but it’s hard to win games against good teams if you don’t take preparation seriously. The Greek players will have seen the Americans play NBA games on television; two years ago, the Americans didn’t even know the names of the Greek players who were beating them.