I'm as biased as Fox news..... Anyhow, Honda has created an airbag system for their Goldwing cruiser motorcycle. Who would have thought: an airbag for a two wheeler? The footage does show evidence that a body crashing into an airbag seems to be far less detrimental than a body thrown into a car whether a helment is present on the driver or not. Honda has experimented with other unusual saftey designs before. One of which was designed in regard to pedestrain accidents with automobiles. This is why many Honda have less sloping hood lines than other automobile makers.
We'll see how the motorbike community react to this old but proven idea.
The United States basketball team in the FIBA tournament settled with a bronze medal after winning all of its preliminary games to eventually lose to Greece. Is this a failure? No, this is more than a failure, this is a complete and utter breakdown from the"dream team" that received so much hype during the last couple of weeks and were the clear favorites to win the gold after dominating Puerto Rico and China in its first two games. After losing to Greece, they were able to regroup to take the game against Argentina to obtain the bronze. But where's the gold? It's not in our hands; it's with Spain after they defeated Greece. And is this suppose to be the US basketball team for the next 4 years that will take us back to the glory days in the next summer Olympics? We'll see.
So why did we lose? Well, this is not the original "dream team." Simple as that. This is not the nineties anymore guys. Basketball is not just an American sport anymore. We, the audience and players, have created a monster that we ourselves cannot stop; we have publicized the greatness of this game and touted our success on an international pedestal where outsiders have now become contenders. The commissioner of the NBA, however much I may disagree with him, have succeeded in creating a portrait of basketball being not just a sport of hiphop, headbands, and ankle-reaching "shorts" but an event for the community, an activity to promote teamwork and collaboration among all participants.
The keyword here is teamwork. An idea that rarely exists in the NBA or in any level of basketball played in the states. The idea of team work here is throwing the ball to the center in the post and isolating him. Yes, that's team work- to get the other four guys to walk away from the ball as far as possible, allowing the center to play his defender on a one-on-one basis. So lets bring back the question: why did we lose? Greece played as a team, running the pick-and-roll to perfection, setting several screens to get a shooter open on the perimeter. They made multiple passes playing the inside to outside game spreading the floor and finding the open man for the shot. And it doesn't hurt to have several sharp, clutch jump shooters on the team. I wish I could count the number of passes made by each team through out the duration of the game, and I would be confident that Greece would win in that category.
So do we go back to the drawing board?
Nothing against Coach Brown (NBA and NCAA championships) or Coach K (renown coach of Duke University) who have amazing resumes but they must realize that similar to how, for example, the best college and high school basketball player may not translate to a contributing professional player, an NBA all-star may not work well on an international level. I am not in anyway saying that the international level is harder by any means although some international teams could definitely give some NBA teams a run for their money. But the problem here is that there are too many chiefs and not enough indians on this current dream team. The starting lineup is composed of Kirk Hienrich, Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, Mello Anthoney, and Dwight Howard who are all captains of their respective teams. And Chris Bosh, an upcoming power forward who is slated to make over a 100 million in his next contract is sitting on the bench deep on the roster sheet and is only contributing to the team by publicly announcing the lack of minutes that he is receiving. They are also the go-to guys on their respective teams and they are all under the age of 24. So a team of all offense might be fun to watch with spectacular windmill dunks and amazing hurdles over international players with 35 inch verticals but where's the defense?
The defense got cut. Bruce Bowen, one of my favorite players, who is a veteran in this league and known for his unforgiving defense was cut by the team due to lack of roster positions. Sure he's old and injury prone. But he is proven. He has won several championships. He has defended the best players around the league. He is an essential on my team if I were a coach. And most importantly, he's a team player.
So this is the end of my rant. So much hype surrounded this team to only finish with a bronze. Well, lets hope these players mature a bit before the Olympics and play some more team ball. My point here is that the current dream team is not any worse than the one in the nineties (only if we had a time machine to test that idea). However, the reason we are losing is that the fundamentals of basketball in the United States are not evolving as rapidly as the game in other countries. My plan would be to gradually alter the rules of the NBA to that of the internationals rules, which will expand the game even further and will also prepare our players to play a faster paced game with less isolations and more passing routes. This will allow us to be a golden contender every year, and perhaps, regain our "Dream Team" reputation.
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