USA basketball seems to be back on track, winning games by 30 or more. The difference is the players seem to have remembered how to shoot. When I last looked at the numbers for the Wall Street Journal in 2003, NBA teams were shooting on average 44% from the field, an all-time low. Last year, they averaged 46%. While the U.S. team actually shot poorly early in the 2008 Olypic tournament, against Australia the team shot 57% from the field and 41% from three-point range en route to a 116-85 blowout.
Compare these numbers to the 2002 World Basketball Championship, in which NBA pros placed a shocking sixth. Americans dominated statistically in nearly every category. They finished at or near the top in rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, even scoring. The one exception: shooting. There the U.S. tied for fifth. Medalists Yugoslavia, Argentina, and Germany all shot better. Now the U.S. is shooting well, too, except from the free-throw line, where they still stink.
Of course, the improve shooting percentage is aided by the number of dunks generated by steals and offensive rebounds, in which the much quicker and stronger NBA players excel. If you watch the Redeem Team try to generate a good shot from a set half-court offense, they still flounder, not knowing how to move the ball or hit the open man nearly as well as the top European squads. (I wonder how a team of white Americans would fare? Team USA is all African-American.) Good thing for them, they don't have to rely on half-court fundamentals to win.
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