Thursday Bolts – 7.26.12

Fran Fraschilla on Team USA’s top challenger: “In addition to its talent, Spain has great continuity. The core of the team has been together for a while and is in the midst of a great run that includes a FIBA World Championship in 2006, an Olympic silver medal in 2008 and the past two European Championships. Spain’s attack has evolved into an inside-oriented one because of the size of the Gasol brothers, Ibaka and veteran Felipe Reyes. In fact, the team’s three-out, two-in offense is a much more NBA-oriented attack than it has had in the past when it spread the floor with shooting forwards.”

Hollis Thompson in a Q&A: “I think I learned how to play the game at Georgetown, I learned how to score. I’m looking forward to just ramping up my game in other areas.”

Zach Lowe of SI.com says the NBA’s fun stats tool we media get to use is coming for fans: “It’s a powerful database that offers new tools and combines some data available at other sites into one mammoth place. It has been available over the last five months to some media, and really only had the technological power behind it to support 15 or 20 users at once, says Steve Hellmuth, executive vice-president for operations and technology for NBA Entertainment. By the middle of the next season — the All-Star break at the latest — the NBA hopes to give the general public access to that entire trove of data thanks to a partnership with the German-based tech company SAP announced on Wednesday. SAP will provide the technological oomph required for something like 12,000 or 15,000 fans to use the toy at once, Hellmuth says.”

“The Watch” cast talking sports, including their favorite players.

Bradford Doolittle of ESPN.com: “The Americans completed a perfect quintet of pre-Olympic games with a 100-78 win against Spain on Tuesday. Team USA won its exhibitions by an average of 26.6 points per game, with a six-point win over Argentina being the tightest contest. Context is important when you’re considering a program like Team USA, which is now 54-1 under Coach K. So for comparison’s sake, consider that the 2010 national team won that year’s FIBA tournament with an average differential of 24.6 points per game. That team was also missing a number of elite players and relied on Kevin Durant for nearly a quarter of its scoring.”

David Thorpe of ESPN.com on Perry Jones: “Still has to improve and get healthy, but has enough talent to crack a deep Thunder rotation.”

Mashable noting how good Team USA’s Instagrams are right now: “For the past few weeks, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and company have been training, bonding and playing a series of exhibition games in the States and Europe. And they’ve been documenting and sharing the whole thing with some pretty amazing Instagram shots — giant humans on Segways, Kevin Love posing with a miniature doppleganger and James Harden looking like a KO’d Kimbo Slice while passed out on the team bus with mouth agape, just to name a few examples.”

Trey Kerby of TBJ on the Segway tour: “I don’t know why I find Deron Williams, Kevin Durant and James Harden taking a Segway tour around Barcelona so funny, but I sure do. I think it’s the helmets. Or maybe it’s because Durant’s handlebars are below his waist. Or maybe it’s just the “Arrested Development” connotations, which are even funnier if you imagine The Hundred Million Dollar Deron telling James Harden he’s not waiting for him because Deron’s the one wearing $6,300 basketball shorts and Harden doesn’t even make that in three months.”

Chris Ryan of Grantland: “No. Literally. It’s a picture of them rolling. Okay, not literally. This is more the moment before the rolling. This is another Team USA production of a film by Deron Williams (a.k.a. the Annie Leibovitz of the United States Men’s Basketball Team). I think it was Hemingway who said the best way to see Barcelona is by Segway, right? Kevin Durant seems all in on the idea, but does The Beard? No so much. He looks like maybe he’s had one or two Segway-based pranks pulled on him. Maybe Thabo and Royal Ivey put him on one that had a faulty gyroscopic sensor and it was … I mean, that was funny. But not something Harden wants to repeat! Am I right?!”