Charles Barkley blames roster construction for Team USA's struggles

Charles Barkley says Team USA's struggles in the Rio Olympics are a result of poor roster construction.

Basketball Hall of Famer and current TNT analyst Charles Barkley says the U.S. men's basketball team is struggling in the Rio Olympics because of its poor roster construction.

After winning the first two games of group play against China and Venezuela by a combined 101 points, Team USA beat Australia by 10, and Serbia and France by three points each.

"It's not a good team to put together," Barkley told Sports360AZ.com. "If you take away DeAndre Jordan, every guy on that team is a ball-dominant guy. You see them playing a lot of one-on-one basketball."

Barkley says the team lacks role players and the reason for the struggles are because the team is full of shooters and isolation scorers.

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"You take a guy like Kyle Lowry, who is a hell of a player, he wants to score. Kyrie [Irving] wants to score. Kevin [Durant] wants to score. DeMar [DeRozan] wants to score," Barkley said. "So, I think they have been really stagnant offensively. "When they put that team together in the future, they have to realize we can't have just really, really great offensive players. They gotta have players that if they don't get a shot, they're not just gonna stand around and mope."

Barkley won two gold medals in Olympic basketball; one with the original Dream Team in 1992 and one four years later in the Atlanta Games.

Team USA faces Argentina on Wednesday in the quarterfinals and was the only team in the tournament to go undefeated in group play.

- Scooby Axson