Five-ring circus: The Thread of the XXXIII Olympiad

With this team specifically, there sure is a heavy whiff of nepo baby, valuing familiarity, and "plays the white right way" to it, between the presence of Barry, Jimmer and the names in that tryout pool. Maddox is 34 and went to Princeton, and internationally played in the Netherlands and the U.K. Travis is 31 and played two years D-I at Florida Southern, two years D-II. 3v3 is different in terms of pacing and rules, but it's not THAT different from 5v5. (Looking at the Big 3, that league's best players are guys you'd expect, like Joe Johnson and Corey Brewer, and less so the Kuran Iverson types and guys that didn't get significant NBA run.)

 

OK, I’ll admit it. The kid freaking out about Ledecky waving at her hit a soft spot in heart and it got just a little dusty in here.

 

I agree. I think they completely missed on how athletic and how long these other countries are. In a 10 minute game it's hard to win with just spot shooters that struggle to move without the ball. I'm sure they have technical basketball IQ, but you have to have some sort of isolation game and ability to create a shot.

 

DING DING DING!

Frankly, I am stunned that anyone here gives even half a shit about Olympics 3 on 3 basketball.

 

This team is fucking insane.

I am absolutely in shock of the shit we have on the floor.

 

It's an Olympic sport. I've been incredibly invested in this since about, oh, Tuesday.

 

If the Olympic men's flag-football team takes this path in 2028, it'll have Tim Tebow on it.

 

Cool things I saw in the Olympics today that most probably didn't see.

Norway-Hungary men's handball: Game tied 25-25 with less than a minute left. Norway has the ball and is burning clock to go for the win with a last (or late) shot. But Hungary steals the ball with about 12 seconds left and Bence Imre breaks away down the court all by himself with just the goalie to beat -- looks like a sure goal. But the keeper, Torbjorn Bergerud, makes a tremendous save and flings the ball down the court to start a Norway fast break, which ends with Alexandre Blonz's buzzer beater for the victory.

Taiwan vs. China, doubles badminton: Great match, back and forth, goes the distance with the Taiwan team of Lee Yang and Wang Chi-Lin winning the final game 24-22 on their fourth match point. Wang had number of improbable shots, including one sequence in which he slipped and fell on his ass but still managed to return three smashes hit in his direction while sitting on the floor before the Chinese finally won the point. The highlight came at 14-12 in the third game, when Wang pulled off an insane behind-the-back shot that had the commentator shouting, "No, no, no, no, no, no! Come on, you must at least respect the laws of physics!"

 

This is the way.

 

Team handball is a pretty cool sport. Kinda a mixture of basketball, hockey, soccer with some aspects of football.

I think if it had a snappy quirky name it could go big. Courtball? Fireball? (The official ball could simply be the current ball molded out of optic yellow/orange in a flame pattern.)

Look what happened with pickleball.

 

3x3 basketball is a lot like beach volleyball to me. It's been around in a competitive form of various sorts forever and now it's on the Olympic stage where I think it will expand. Now beach volleyball had Misty May and Kerri Walsh to carry the sport as superstars on the Olympic level for a decade and eventually that trickled down to it becoming an intercollegiate sport that grew from 17 schools in 2016 to 101 schools participating in 2024.

 

When I think of handball, I think of the city sport where you use a blue paddle ball on a wall in the park.