If living up to the adage: “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all” was an Olympic event, the US men’s basketball team would have been standing atop the Rio de Janeiro Games podium on Thursday.
Plenty of platitudes and praise were being handed out, but no medals: Those will be awarded on the final day of the Rio Olympics on Aug. 21, when US players are expected, as they have at 14 of 17 Summer Games, to bring home gold.
While this US squad is more “B Team” than “Dream Team” — with many top players, including four-time National Basketball Association MVP LeBron James and twice reigning MVP Stephen Curry, opting out — they remain the heavy favorites.
Photo: AP
If there was any thought the US might be ripe for an upset in Rio, Team USA removed a good amount of that doubt with a dominating run-in to the Games that saw them thrash China, their opening-night opponents, by 50 and 49 points in tune-up games.
Asked what he expected from China today, Kevin Durant, the 2014 NBA MVP, searched for a moment for something positive to say before settling on the well-worn, but trusty cliche: “They made us work.”
“They played their tails off against us and made us better,” offered Durant in the sincerest tone he could muster.
“We won by a lot of points, but they made us better,” he said.
“I know it is going to be different here,” Durant said. “This is the real thing, these guys want to beat us, everybody wants to beat us and we don’t to be that team to have someone beat us.”
Despite Durant’s best attempts to inject some suspense into today’s contest, the truth is that the outcome is unlikely to be any different.
Losses have been rare on Olympic hardwood for the US, who boast an all-time record of 130-5 in Games competition and will be expected to add to that win column as they chase a third straight gold.
However, at a packed news conference on Thursday, Team USA players and coaching staff did their best to convince hundreds of media that danger lurked everywhere up and down the draw.
“We want to win, we want to send a message to the rest of the world we are here on business,” said Carmelo Anthony, a four-time Olympian in basketball. “We are focused on winning and that’s what we care about.”
“We don’t want to let anything come in between that,” he said.
Fred Kerley is competing unaugmented against drug-fuelled athletes at this weekend’s Enhanced Games and still hopes to race in the 2028 Olympics, the suspended former 100m world champion said on Friday. Arguably the biggest name at the divisive event in Las Vegas, where doping is permitted, the US sprinter said he had chosen not to take any of the banned substances including testosterone and steroids that his competitors have been using. “I don’t need it. God gave me fast feet for a reason. And I’m here to showcase my talent,” Kerley said. Kerley last September became the first US competitor and first track
MLB is experiencing an epidemic of guys being dudes. At ballparks all across the US, groups consisting of mostly young men are joining in on the “Tarps Off” trend that is loud, goofy, infectious and new to the baseball world. Joining in on the fun is simple: Go to the section where the party is happening, take off your shirt and start twirling it above your head. Soccer-like chants or singing usually follow — injecting a jolt of energy for a sport that is occasionally chided for its lack of energy inside the stadium. After getting its start in St Louis, Missouri, on
Hull City AFC are to play Middlesbrough for a place in the Premier League after Southampton on Wednesday failed in their appeal against expulsion from the Championship playoff final for spying on opponents. Southampton were thrown out of the final on Tuesday and handed a four-point deduction for next season after they had beaten semi-final opponents Middlesbrough. “The original sanction of expulsion ... remains in place, as does the four-point deduction to be applied to the 2026/27 Championship table and the reprimand in respect of all charges,” the English Football League said in a statement. The final is to be played at Wembley
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL: Officials, players and fans winging across all of North America are likely to make this the most polluting World Cup ever, say scientists The largest and likely most lucrative ever World Cup this summer could set a record for the most-polluting sporting event in history, environmental experts say. “Unlike the case of the Olympic Games, where the carbon footprints have been reducing over the last several editions, this is totally opposite in the case of FIFA men’s World Cup,” said David Gogishvili, a geographer at the University of Lausanne (Unil). The summer’s World Cup has been expanded to 48 teams for the first time. It is being played in three countries — Mexico, Canada and the US — for the first time. It is going to
RSS