18 Days in August, an Olympic Blog

When Shaq throws bricks from the free throw line, he at least has other skills (not to mention teammates) he can fall back on to pick up some of the slack, and yet he still gets roundly criticised for his lack of skills. Now imagine a whole team being inspired by Shaq's brick laying and going one better; picture 12 players not only posting Shaq-like stats from the free throw-line (you are there alone with the basket, there really is no excuse to shoot below 80%) but actually going one better and applying Shaq-like consistency to the three-pointer line. This was the game that Greece played against Argentina earlier tonight which ended up in bitter defeat and utter dejection for the rabid fans that had packed the basketball quarterfinals game. Like kids in a candy store, Greek players shot three-pointers from every conceivable angle, whether they were alone or under pressure, whether there was time to set up an offense or time was running out, whether it made sense or not. It didn't really matter; they all missed. 5/30 was the final tally, and we all hung our heads in shame and started a collection immediately to send some of the players to childrens' summer camp for straight shooting. We should probably send the coach there as well so he can acquire a playbook that is not stuck at the My First Threepointer page. As for our playmakers, repeated viewings of the cinematic masterpiece that is Space Jam might come in handy when it is time to run the offense again; they might even figure out that sometimes you pass the ball inside, especially when attacking with 12 seconds left, are two feet away from the basket and passing the ball outside for yet another three pointer to outer space might just cost you your job in a more rational basketball club. Either that, or we could adopt a couple of Lithuanians as illegitimate children of wayward Greek fathers and have them run a three-point training camp for pre-schoolers so that the next generation of basketball players does not have today's ridiculous performance as their guiding light.