Did Team USA Purposely Punish Spain?
August 18th, 2008 at 9:43 amBy Chris
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While stories like this would never be confirmed on the record, something occurred to me while I was watching Team USA dismantle Spain Saturday morning — were the Redeemers punishing Spain for their ridiculous insensitivity when they took that infamous photo?
You know, this one:
Considering Jason Kidd’s comments about the amazingly-stupid photo, it’s obvious he and his teammates were aware of what went on. How could they not be? With that in mind, it’s not hard to fathom the Redeemers playing the role of disciplinarian and teaching the Spanish a little about humiliation — something they did time and time again with a bevy of dunks, 3-pointers, screams, yells and LeBron James glares.
It was almost as if Team USA was spanking the Spaniards for something besides just showing the world USA Basketball is back. No, it felt almost personal — like when a two hated rivals play and one team eschews the “throw out the records when these teams play” tradition and blows their rival opponent out.
There’s a little extra something in the domination; like rubbing your rivals’ faces in it.
That’s what Team USA’s beatdown of Spain felt like — a “how dare you disrespect our hosts” type of performance. Maybe I’m reading too much into things, but that doesn’t change the fact it felt a little bit like Team USA was making Spain pay for their insensitivity at the one place they could do so with impunity: the basketball court.
After the basketball tournament is over, maybe the Redeemers can drink some Vitamin Water and go punish the Spanish Tennis team.
Thankfully, the Team USA Women already handled the Spanish Women’s Basketball Team, another group of Spanish athletes who don’t give a damn about sensitivity toward other nations and nationalities.
Stumble it!
August 18th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
[...] undressing the Spanish Saturday morning — more on this in another post — Team USA jumped on the Germans (and Chris Kaman) today with a 18-3 run and never looked [...]