Photo by Natalya Shelton

Traditionally a top contender, Team USA placed fourth at the FIBA Basketball World Cup. They lost to Lithuania, Germany, and Canada along the way, leading many fans to consider the team an embarrassment. -Made in Canva

The US national team placed fourth in the 2023 FIBA World Cup, and the German national team are officially world champions. What kind of alternate reality are we living in right now?

Team USA had NBA fans on edge early in the tournament, when they lost to Lithuania in their fifth game. Yes, you are reading this correctly. Team USA, a group of what are supposed to be the most talented hoopers on the planet, lost to Lithuania. I bet 90% of the American population couldn’t even find Lithuania on a map, yet here they are embarrassing the US on a world stage.

But that’s just it. In past years, Team USA has consisted of some of the most talented basketball players in the world. Many fans can recall a time when Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, and James Harden were all on the US national team. Boy, are those days gone.

This year’s team USA roster was an absolute joke. The only player who even slightly deserved to be there was Anthony Edwards, so naturally he led the team in scoring. But you know things aren’t looking too good when Austin Reaves is the second leading scorer on a basketball team. Austin Reaves. The man is literally a walking meme, yet here he is putting up 14 points a game for the US national team. How in the world did that happen?

And don’t even get me started on the rest of the team, because in what universe are Bobby Portis and Josh Hart good enough to make Team USA? I would find it easier to believe that they stole a couple uniforms and snuck into the tournament like some kind of roster imposters, than to believe that they made the Team USA roster legit. But somehow, that’s exactly what happened.

Nevertheless, Anthony Edwards and his motley crew made it to the semifinal where they would face off against Dennis Schroder and the rest of the German national team. The game was close the entire time, until Schroder hit a dagger in the final seconds to put team USA away for good. Germany would go on to win 113-111. While this loss was still extremely disappointing, at least they put up some kind of fight and lost to a good basketball team.

But following their loss to Germany, Team USA would continue to disappoint every basketball fan in America during their matchup against Canada for third place. Now, this was a Canadian national team with young stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and RJ Barrett on it, who dropped 31 and 23 points respectively. But surprisingly, neither of them were the leading scorers for Canada.

Care to take a guess at who embodied the spirit of prime Michael Jordan and dropped 39 points on the US national team? Dillon “The Villain” Brooks. The man who has either fought with or injured just about every single player in the NBA, put up nearly 40 points against Team USA to lead Canada to a 127-118 third place victory. NBA fans across the nation are scratching their heads wondering how this happened. One thing is for certain though, despite all of the controversy Dillon Brooks was involved in, he got the last laugh with this performance.

So where does Team USA go from here? Well for starters, they’re going to have to assemble The Avengers in order to come back from this one. I’m talking about Lebron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and whoever else they need to recruit in order to redeem themselves. Once they do that, everybody is going to have to play their butts off, because all of the world’s basketball teams are lining up for their chance to take down Team USA.

Although I don’t have words to express my disappointment in Team USA’s performance this year, I will be tuning in next year to hopefully watch the US national team reclaim its throne at the top of the basketball world. So I guess the only thing left to say is, Redeem Team 2.0 here we come.