If USA Basketball had picked more Detroit Pistons, all would have been OK

Who is to blame for the mess  USA  Basketball has become. Not Pistons players.

Blame is pretty obvious: team manager Jerry Colangelo and coach Gregg Popovich.

Their training camp was suppose to be a ‘bubble’ like the NBA had in Orlando last summer. Obviously, that bubble burst so bad, teams are afraid to play them.

And if Love is not 100-percent healthy, why was he even on the team. Did the medical staff drop the ball on this? Did Colangelo give the OK?

Because of the condensed NBA schedule, a lot of players are simply exhausted or nursing injuries who might have been on the team (Grant replaced James Harden, who had a hamstring injury)

The fact the Olympics are right after the NBA finals is no coincidence. The NBA did not want to conflict with the Olympics (because the ratings would be awful) so that is why they jammed the season to end before the Tokyo Games.

Since the playoffs are so hard up to the Olympics, three players on Team USA  (Former Piston Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday and Devin Booker) will arrive in Tokyo never having been at a practice, as their teams are in the NBA finals.

As for Popovich, he is taking over as coach from Mike Krzyzewski, who went 88-1 and guided Team USA to three Olympic gold medals and two World Cups. Popovich is currently 9-5 as head coach.

Popovich is the one who wanted Love. It was a controversial selection from the start. If you are putting on the Olympic team a player who has suffered years of injuries and has not had a solid NBA season in four years, you better be 100-percent sure he is ready.

Popovich and Colangelo put together a team without a true center. Nothing against Michigan native Draymond Green, but he is not a full-time starting center. The Warriors used him at center in the ‘Death Lineup’ for special situations, where the matchups were good, not the whole game.

Knowing there would be little practice, there seemed to be no plan to deal with it. Team USA basically looked lost on offense and defensively were awful in its first two exhibition games. They let Nigeria make 20 three-pointers.

Popovich rotations were … confounding. Grant came off the bench as a top sub in the first game, started the second and then played the very end of each half of the third (in which he had three blocks to help the defense).

Unless your name is Damian Lillard or Kevin Durant, you have no idea what your role is on this team.