explains why this is going to happen, and how USA Basketball can fix it<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Olympic basketball team got drilled by Italy in a tune-up game yesterday. The Italians managed to drop 15 3-pointers on a team composed of NBA stars. A lot of big names dropped out of the Olympic squad (or turned down invites) because of security concerns, exhaustion, injury, and\/or marriage plans. I think one … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Swoopin’ and Hoopin’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,32,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basketball","category-sports","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-5n","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1311,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/duke-it-out-bitch","url_meta":{"origin":333,"position":0},"title":"Duke it out, bitch","author":"Gil","date":"January 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A few months ago, I wrote about how Gilbert Arenas is one of my favorite NBA players. Subsequently, he started keeping a blog on NBA.com, which I dutifully added to my blogroll. I've come to enjoy Arenas more this year, because he's a throwback to an era of absolutely crazy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":683,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/2005-nba-preview-western-conference-teams","url_meta":{"origin":333,"position":1},"title":"2005 NBA Preview: Western Conference Teams","author":"Gil","date":"October 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Tom SpurgeonAlthough none of its teams are likely to lose a game to an Israeli club squad anytime soon, the Western Conference of the NBA remains the junior circuit of the two because of history and mythology. A team in Sacramento not only sounds less interesting than one in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":678,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-2005-preview-texas-fed-exes-and-city-hexes-division","url_meta":{"origin":333,"position":2},"title":"NBA 2005 Preview: Texas, Fed Exes and City Hexes Division","author":"Gil","date":"October 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Tom SpurgeonSan Antonio SpursThe Spurs are the first team in NBA history where the better they play, the more likely the shooting guard's family is to be kidnapped and ransomed.Other than looking forward to Michael Finley's adjustment period, the only thing about the regular season with the Spurs worth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2789,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-aaiee","url_meta":{"origin":333,"position":3},"title":"NBA PREVIEW! AAIEE!","author":"Gil","date":"October 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's that time of year, dear readers! The 2008-09 NBA season is starting tonight, so that means it's time to check out the official Virtual Memories NBA Season Preview! Sure, you might want to go straight to the team-by-team previews, but I think you really want to check out contributor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":290,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/independence-day","url_meta":{"origin":333,"position":4},"title":"Independence Day","author":"Gil","date":"July 16, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been an NBA mark for years. I'd watched the league as a kid, but I became a fan when the Knicks took Patrick Ewing with the #1 pick in the 1985 draft. For 11 seasons, I was a devoted Knicks fan. I cheered when Ewing made his first all-star\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1732,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-part-1","url_meta":{"origin":333,"position":5},"title":"NBA Preview, Part 1","author":"Gil","date":"October 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I warned ya, and now it's here! Just in time for tomorrow night's NBA season tip-off, it's the annual Virtual Memories NBA 2007-08 Preview! (Well it's Part 1. We'll getcha the second half tomorrow, along with our end-of-season predictions!)\u00c2\u00a0 Brought to you by the finest dance-team in East Rutherford, NJ!","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}