The United States men’s basketball team’s preparation for the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer could be going better than expected. While the squad won its most recent exhibition, a 28-point thrashing of Argentina, the team had a bumpy start, losing to Nigeria and Australia.
While both national teams are impressive — Nigeria is an up-and-coming team with NBA talent and a former NBA head coach in Mike Brown, while Australia has legitimate Olympic medal aspirations — the Americans have such a high bar set for them that losing back-to-back games to just about anyone was shocking. However, there is no cause for concern in the opinion of the team’s finest player.
Kevin Durant told Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes that he believes the squad was simply caught by two teams who were further down the road than them.
“We’re a team that’s still coming together and trying to find our identity,” Durant said. “We have so many great players that you can play so many different ways, and we are indecisive at times on defense and offense. In the midst of us figuring it out, these teams are established and they’re running their sets. We’re working on our sets. The stars were kind of aligned for us to lose early on.”
Durant then went into more detail, outlining the various scenarios in which something like this may occur.
“It’s easy to say that after two losses without any context,” Durant said. “Let’s just go down the roster of each team and you can find the answer. If you’re looking for NBA talent, those teams have it. Understand where we’re at as a team and then you can make assumptions for yourself. We do have all the best players in the league, but these national teams have NBA players, too, who are now No. 1 options and they’re used to playing that role internationally. We’re still adjusting as a team, and that’s not making excuses. There’s a lot of context people need to understand. We didn’t expect to lose a game, but losing games happen. We’ll get it right.”
The United States’ next game will come on Friday evening when they attempt to exact a measure of revenge against the Australians.
