Barry Tompkins: Grading the Giants on a curve

We are nigh on to the MLB All-Star break and everyone who has ever so much as offered an opinion of any sort in print, online, on television or radio, is giving mid-season grades to every team in the major leagues.

There is a consensus in naming those kids who received an A grade. Everybody agrees that the Phillies, Orioles, Guardians and Brewers can get into the baseball version of Harvard. They each lead their respective divisions, and most look like they will stay there.

On ESPN’s midseason pontifications there were a couple of surprises. One was that Kansas City (yes, that Kansas City) received an A-minus grade.  I haven’t paid any attention to Kansas City since George Brett corked his bat there. If the truth be told, the Royals are what the Giants aspire to be. A good, young team built through a solid farm system, coupled with a handful of veterans to guide them.

As to our own local heroes, the Giants received a C-minus grade for the first half of this season. Grading on a curve, I’d say that’s just about right. The Giants are like my old ‘47 Chevy. They run well for a little while and then sputter and quit without any apparent reason.

On the whole, I think Bob Melvin is doing a pretty darn good job shuffling bodies and at the very least, keeping this ship afloat and operable. Injuries have decimated his entire team and there are times when the pitching staff has to rely on volunteers.

All of that said, you can kind of see a glimmer of hope for this team. They are slowly eliminating some excess baggage they’ve been carrying around, and one through nine on given nights you can see a lineup that is capable of producing. Most of it young talent – a la the Royals.

I strongly doubt that this is a team that this is capable of carting off a World Series trophy this year, but it is very much a team that with a little bit of consistency can sneak into the playoffs.

True, the C-minus grade is just about where they are right now, but with just a little more homework, and not as many players staying home sick, it’s not out of the question that this team can improve its grade all the way up to B-minus, which is good enough to keep them off the golf course at least until early October.

On the other hand, D-plus is just a grade away too.

The Dream Team 8.0

So, what do you think of the chances that this version of the Dream Team might possibly win the gold medal at the Paris Olympics?  Yeah, me too.

But it might not be quite like the previous seven gold medals. True, when you put Stephen Curry, LaBron James, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Devin Booker, Ben Adebayo, Anthony Edwards, Joel Embid, Tyrese Haliburton, Jrue Holiday, Jayson Tatum and Derrick White on the same team there is reason to believe they’d be able to handle the best that South Sudan might be able to put on the floor against them.  I feel pretty confident in boldly predicting they’ll handle South Sudan.

But, I’m not as quick to think that victory is assured against Canada, France, Australia, and even Serbia and Germany. The game has moved rather far away from Dr. Naismith’s peach baskets in Massachusetts, and at the upcoming Paris Olympics, virtually every team has at least a couple of players who are or have been on NBA rosters.

In truth, I think the U.S. will still have its way with any of the other Olympic competitors, but they won’t be able to do it like the original Dream Team in 1992 in Barcelona.

That team, which featured Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley amongst another all-star cast, almost mailed it in. The team did its training in Monte Carlo and practice time was divided equally between the baccarat table and the basketball court. Legend has it that Jordan spent about four times as much time on the golf course as on the floor.

When in Barcelona, the Dream Team stayed in a hotel where rooms now go for roughly $1,200 a night. The Olympic Village was only a rumor.

The gold medal was simply what came after room service breakfast and champagne. The average margin of victory was 44 points. In its first game – against Angola it went on a 46 to 1 run early in the game. The one point Angola scored was on a free throw after a technical foul against Charles Barkley.

This time around, under head coach Steve Kerr, it’s a team that is chock full of unselfish players.  And, in this age of international basketball, if you don’t have that – you don’t win.

Shooters aren’t necessarily the most needed commodity at this years’ Olympic tournament.  Somebody’s got to get the ball to the shooters and that’s where the difference in Steve Kerr’s team lies. There are any number of guys on this team who can score. What sets them apart is that there are an equal number of distributors. James is great.  Durant, Edwards and Tatum are big time scorers. But for me, the difference makers in these Games are Stephen Curry (oh, by the way – he can score a bit too), Jrue Holiday and Tyrese Haliburton, who all see the floor and have an innate ability to find the open man.

This team is going to be fun to watch.

The Olympics are a different, more physical form of basketball, and I will never forget working an Olympic Games next to Jim Valvano, who was trying to describe the difference between how the U.S. plays, how France plays, and how Germany plays.

He said, “Take the word ‘butterfly,’ that’s the way the Americans play. The word for butterfly in French is papillon, and that’s the way the French play. In German, the word for butterfly is “schmetterling,”  That said everything I needed to know about International basketball.

In truth, I think this version of USA Basketball has equal parts butterfly and schmetterling.  And that should be good as gold.