Team USA dispatches Canada in Exhibition Match; Who should the starting five be?

Team USA were able to sneak past Team Canada is last nights exhibition match before the 2024 Paris Olympics. Craig and Cam recap last nights game, how Cam is feeling after adopting Canada as his international team for 2024, who Steve Kerr should start in Paris, and Joel Embiid's performance.

Episode Transcript

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It's the Craig Way Show with thevoice of the Texas Longhorns and Hall of
Fame Broadcasting Craig Way here on Thursdayafternoon alongside the producer Cam Parker, with

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you up until five o'clock this afternoon. As can't mentioned next week, throughout
Monday through Thursday of next week,we'll be in Dallas at the Omni Hotel,
the headquarters in sight of SEC FootballMedia Days that we'll have some more
football to discuss a little bit later. But I did want to get to

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this basketball game. Team USA.I don't think they looked flawless last night,
but the defense was really pretty solidI think, and beat Team Canada
eighty six to seventy two. Andnow about Anthony Edwards who said, Hey,

(01:10):
I'm the guy. I'm the guy, and he had thirteen points off
the bench. Anthony and Anthony Davisad had a double double as well.
It didn't exactly start off the best. They missed their first six shots,
they had eight turnovers in the firstquarter of the game, but eventually they
kind of going kind of going therebecause they got their defense going. Canada

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was only seven of thirty three beyondthe arc. The guy you were the
reason that Cameron revealed yesterday on theprogram that he's rooting for Canada is because
Shay Gildgit Alexander, his number onestar from his favorite NBA team, the
Oklahoma City Thunder, combined with JamalMurray to go five of eighteen from the

(01:59):
floor. Not great. Steve Carter, the coach, said that good first
game for us. He said,we're just starting with four days of practice.
You could see the rust on usoffensively early. We had a lot
of turnovers in the first half,but I loved the defensive intensity in the
work on the glass. It wasa good first effort on how we want
to establish play moving forward. Whatwas your take, your impressions of what

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you saw? Yeah, no kdefor Team USA, the Kawhi Leonard news
dropping yesterday, Derek White to replacesome Just an exhibition game, and you
can kind of tell that for themost part, these guys have not really
played any sort of competitive basketball ina long time. I mean, in
the first quarter it was like twelveto four at one point, Team USA
was one for seven from the floorof Trilling Canada. And then then the

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first quarter, you know, itwas twenty one to fourteen. And it
kind of just shows you that TeamUSA had just an offul first quarter shooting
wise and was only down by sevenpoints tells you how good this team is.
No one really great except for AnthonyEdwards, and that that is to
be no surprise they're considering the timeoff they've played since the regular season ended,

(03:07):
since the playoffs ended. For mostof these guys, I mean,
only Tatum, and only Tatum isthe in drawl day or recently I have
played for Team USA in the NBAFinals. But I mean the arguments,
is this team as good as aninety two dream team and people are making
that claim. Craig, you probablycan offer more insight on that. On

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your opinion, I don't think theyare, just because the best basketball player
of all time was on that ninetytwo dream team. And I think Magic
Johnson and Larry Bird, even thoughLarry Bird was dealing with all those back
injuries. Still, those three guys, I think I would take maybe over
everyone else on this team except forLebron, So I would stole the ninety
two Dream Team as the greatest Olympicteam. But a good conversation, at

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least a good debate. When yousaid the greatest basketball player of all time.
I'm like, come on, ChristianLahner didn't play hardly at all until
the game was going You give whatyou're saying. There are marked differences between
not only the players on the ninetytwo Dream Team and this particular collection.

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The mark differences. And I wouldsay this to you. You know what
the biggest difference between then and nowis the rest of the world's better.
Oh my goodness, yeah, farbetter the ninety two team. Now,
you know, we said, well, how much better could it be?
When the US only got a bronzeat eighty eight that was the last year

(04:32):
with the Collegians only when John Thompsonwas coaching in Seoul. But of course
they wanted eighty four. When MichaelJordan was playing on that Bob Knight coach
team and it was Collegians. That'swhere you heard Bob Knight saying our number
one goal was to kick the Russiansass. That was his big thing to
say, of course at the Boycottand eighties at the end play in eighty

(04:56):
they won in seventy six when DeanSmith was coaching that team in seventy two
is the big controversial landing with theSoviets and every other time the US had
dominated, so it the rest ofthe world professionally has gotten a lot better.
Now, are they as good asTeam USA when they've got their their
best known for it? No,they're not, but they could offer some

(05:19):
challenges. And I think for thisAmerican team it's it's going to be about
the comfort level, how quickly theyad just getting comfortable around one another.
Yeah. Just looking at that ninetytwo season Croatia fin they were the silver
the runners up in the Olympics,only had two NBA players on that team,
Tony Kook coach and Treyson Petrovitch whoplayed for the Nets. Besides that,

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no one else in the NBA.You look at some of these lower
ranked teams in the FIBA who theUS is playing, they have three or
four NBA guys on the team already. So I mean, to your point,
the level competition, I mean,the best players in basketball, handful
of those are international, right.Giannis is from Greece, obviously, Jokic
is from is he Slovenian? Ishe Slovenian or Slovenia is Luka? Okay?

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So is he Slovakian? I thinkI think he's checked Republic. I
think he's something like that, Yeah, maybe, yeah, Serbian, Serbian.
Three, he's from the Balkans,Yeah, from the Balkans. Yeah,
So I mean all I mean inninety two best players in the world

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were all American. That's completely changedin just twenty thirty years. Yeah.
You mentioned Drazen Petrovitch and he couldhave been one of the greatest players,
I think, one of the greatestshooters. He was tragically killed in the
car wreck, so that that wasunfortunately, and there's a great thirty for
thirty documentary on during during the warthat was going on between Bosnia and Croatia

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and how it ended friendships for guyslike Vatti, Devots and several of those
other guys. It was, it'sit's it's very gripping. But now as
they continue to go forward, Ithink the other deal that that that Steve
Kurr has got to figure out iswho really is going to make up his

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starting lineup? So yeah, right, so if you if if if,
if we are to assume, andI think it's a relatively safe assumption that
three of the spots are going tobe filled by Steph Curry, Lebron and
Joel EMBIID. So the other twospots last night went to Drew Holliday and
Devin Booker. Now I think theykind of looked at it like Booker might

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have been filling the spot for kdon that that second unit had Edwards,
Tyrese Haliburton, bam Adebayo, JasonTatum and n A d And there's your
depth that comes in behind. It'salmost like a hockey a second line that's
coming in behind. And it's alwayskind of like that ever since they've gone

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to NBA players, you know,in the nineties. So they're gonna be
there's there's not gonna be much ofa drop off when they go to that
second group. That the starting lineupis more about a conversation piece as much
as anything. Yeah, and withno Katie last night, you know,
you think Katie gets that starting spot. And if Kawhi was playing, would
he have started? Of course doesnot matter. I do not think Derek

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White will play because typically these teamsusually they have like two guys who are
you know, we'll just be wavingtowels. I mean, look at the
ninety two Olympics right in Barcelona,it was Christian Latner who did he really
even play in any of the biggames. No, but this entire Team
USA, all these guys, Imean, you can make arguments for even
starting Derek White is a great roleplayer. I don't think he'll get a

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lot of minutes depending on what gameit is. But I don't even know
if I would start Drolling beat.I mean, he thouled out last night
in twelve minutes. Craig really lookrusty, look very rusty, and you
know, maybe he'll he'll heat upin the summer. Although I mean he
could technically play for four countries here, France, Cameroon, Canada and Team
USA. But I mean Anthony Edwardsdefinitely think the type of guy who really

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cares about this stuff, and heplayed phenomenal last night. I would start
him over Anthony Edwards. I wouldjust go small. I mean, of
course you might have some matchups wheresize will matter, but for the most
part, I mean against against Canada, USA just completely dominated the glass with
Bam and Ady and embid in.Canada's a smaller team, and there's gonna
be some teams that are gonna runinto who have much bigger height. I

(09:30):
mean Germany with with the the Wagnerbrothers, but I would go small obviously,
Curry, Lebron, Katie I thinkwould be my three throwing, Anthony
Edwards as the four and then thefifth. It's a really good conversation.
Who who was? Who did yousay? You said just now Curry and
Curry? So Steph Curry and AnthonyEdwards as the guards Lebron, Lebron,

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Kadi at the Fords and MBD atcenter. Yeah, I guess I guess
you go then be there. Butthen if you if you need someone,
you know, if you want tosub out Embiid, who would be the
fifth there? I mean, youcould go with Booker for a little bit
more shooting. You can bring inmore more defense with Drew Holiday there.
There's a lot you can do hereand uh and then you got Tatum ready

(10:16):
to come in and Jayson Tatum too, Who was? Who? Just want
an NBA championship. I do notmv Steve Kerr in his staff for trying
to figure out, uh the startinglineups and he's going to close because every
single player on this team is goingto, hey, I want to I
want to be I want to start, and I want to close out the
game. And that's just not feasible. He uh. His quote was,
you can't go wrong picking a startinglineup with this group. I'm gonna do
something different in the next two games. We'll look at a few different combinations

(10:41):
before we settle on anything. Wewanted to establish Joel early in the game,
knowing Canada didn't have any size.We wanted to play Bam and Anthony
Davis with the second group. Wewanted to experience what that looked like.
But of course mb on Embid onlyplayed thirteen minutes with the five points and
six boards, and you know,so anyway, it'll be interesting to see

(11:01):
what that is. I do thinkit's a blessing in the Skies that Kawhi
is not going to play, Anda lot of people were upset that Jaylen
Brown was snubbed. But Jaylen Brown'sanother ball handler here. I mean,
you're already starting five guys who areused to the ball in their hands.
Steph Curry, it's the point guard, Anthony Edawhard. It's same thing used

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to controlling the basketball. Lebron Jamespoint for it. Embei gets the ball
a lot in Philadelphia, even Katieto an extent, So you're going to
throw in Jylen Brown, who alsois used to having the ball in his
hands up. That's why Derek Whitetwas a great addition because he can come
in and move the ball around.Yeah, And and you know, there's
there's several grizzled old veterans on thisteam, none more grizzled than Lebron,

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but kad in there and Curry andhe said, and Lebron said, it's
pretty amazing that we're at this pointof our careers when we're able to showcase
our talent and do what we loveto do and give a little bit back
to the fans. And he talkedabout that, about getting to play with
these guys, and then he wastalking about what Curry said. So it's
an absolute treat to play one ofthe greatest ever to play this game.

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And I'm looking forward to the restof the summer. So everybody seems to
be saying all the right things rightnow. And I would also say this,
I think they have the right guy, the right makeup of the right
guy as the head coach to dealwith this. Yes, in terms occur,

(12:30):
I think he's like that. Itwas much like how I think Mike
Krzyzewski dealt with it. And Idon't know have you seen the documentary.
It was produced for a SEC networkand then picked up by ESPN, The
thing with Skryzhevsky and Roy Williams.I have not watched it. It's it's
amazing. It's amazing if you ever. And what it is is, it's

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it's not really a documentary. It'sa sit down. It's kind of like
the panel discussion thing that I dowith the Division One football coaches at Coaching
School Rivals Reunited. That's it.So what it is is is coach K
it's Roy Williams and it's our friendWes Durham who's doing this from the ACC

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network, and the three of themare sitting at mid court of the Greensboro
Coliseum. And the reason why Isay it's kind of like the deal that
I do. They're doing it forthe North Carolina Coaches Association, so they
have all these high school coaches inthe arena watching. It's just for them
now. It's obviously it's it wasbeing made into documentary style film thing,

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but it's worth watching it, itreally is. And they talk about their
careers and all this other kind ofstuff. But then they talk about dealing
with basketball today and Shashevsky talked aboutwith his time with the national team,
and he said, he said,to all of them, he said,
all of us have egos, hesaid, and that's a good thing.

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We want, we want people tohave that. But at the end of
the day, nobody's gonna ask howmuch you played or how many points you
score. They're going to ask didyou win? Did you win? And
he said he never had a problemwith anybody with regard to that. So
it's it's it's you know, everybodywanted to win, so they were on

(14:24):
board with that. And I thinkthat's the thing for Kevin Durant, he's
always wanted very very, very verymuch to play for the national team.
He's been the face of Team USAfor the last fifteen sixteen years. Yeah,

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so he's he's really into that.So anyway, that's I think this
team will be fine. And Ithink they've got the right guy leading him
too. I think it's it's agood combination. Up next, well,
I have ind conceive here on thisThursday afternoons. We continue on sports Radio
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