French Toast: USA bounced from World Cup, what went wrong? - a podcast by Kurt Helin, NBC Sports

Despite the fact that some of the best NBA players chose to sit out this World Cup — Anthony Davis, James Harden, Damian Lillard — as did the next tier of guys (Bradley Beal, Kevin Love), this was still a talented USA Basketball roster that was the tournament favorite. Then they got bounced by the French in the quarterfinals — Team USA will not even medal. What went wrong? Kurt Helin of NBC Sports and Keith Smith of Yahoo Sports and Real GM (and CelticsBlog) talk about everything from why players chose not to show up, how FIBA made things difficult for the USA and hurt the quality of the tournament overall, and what were the bright spots for the USA (such as qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics). There are not simple answers to any of it, and Kurt and Keith get into all of that.

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