Charles Barkley acknowledges that the level of international basketball has risen, but also thinks that Team USA is still far ahead of the rest of the world. Paul George mentioned one team that could potentially compete with the US squad.
Credit Panoramic/SIPA; Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images for The Match/AFP
In the Dream Team era, there were only nine NBA players spread out across all national teams. Now, there are 61 NBA players competing in the Paris Olympics.
Which means that the level of competition has grown and Team USA’s path to the gold medal isn’t going to be paved with roses.
“First of all, have international teams gotten better? 100%,” Charles Barkley assured during an appearance on Podcast P with Paul George as the host.
However, Barkley maintains that the rest of the world has seemingly caught up with the US just because some outstanding players have allowed their teams to believe they can compete on equal terms with the US.
“They’re still not better than the US,” he holds.
“You take away Joker [Nikola Jokic], Giannis [Antetokounmpo] and Luka [Doncic]. Those three are all great players. Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander] is great also. But we still have the next 10 best players in every game.
So, the international teams have gotten better. But we still have the best players in the world. When we go to our bench, there’s nobody bringing a Jayson Tatum or Jrue Holiday. Those foreign teams ain’t bringing no dudes off the bench that good. We got the best team and the best players, by far,” the former TNT commentator argued.
Paul George, who represented Team USA in the 2016 Olympics, chimmed in and stressed Canada’s guard play, which he called ‘amazing.’
“And I think they’re probably one of the teams that could give USA a real shot if they can put it together,” he added.
“Top to bottom, their guard play is great. But they’re not big enough. You look at France. They have the size, but not the guard play. You can’t find teams internationally that can put it all together the way USA team can. If we’re locked in, there’s no shot at USA losing,” he opined.
Barkley picked up where George had left off.
“Listen, if they lose, we can’t let them back in the country,” the 2-time Olympic gold medalist joked.
“They can’t come back. With the team we’ve got, there’s no excuse for us to lose the gold medal. All they got to do is go out there and play hard and uselfish. That’s really the key.”