HoopsCorner.com Articles: USA basketball, 2004 summer olympics

H o o p s C o r n e r . c o m

HoopsCorner

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August 25, 2004

You're watching the US women's basketball team playing against the host nation Greece. All cheers are for the Greeks. However it doesn't matter, the Yanks have far superior chemistry, ability, and all that good stuff. They have close to a 20 point lead and have just stolen the inbound pass twice and converted in a span of 10 seconds.

You recognize several of this U.S team's members who were also on the '96 squad - 8 years ago. The game announcer let's it known that Lisa Leslie and Dawn Staley played together as far back as '89 for the U.S.

You think to yourself this is how the U.S men's team used to rout their opponents. They were called the Dream Team. It was such a powerful and practical concept that it transcended the basketball sidelines and into other venues. Such as other sports, business, and even music.

In a 1997 rap single LL Cool J exclaims:

Snappin you amateur mc’s
Don’t you know I’m like the Dream Team tourin overseas
For rappers in my circle I’m a deadly disease
Ringmaster bringin a tiger cub to his knees
In the history of rap they’ve never seen such prominence

The last true Dream Team that could live up to the billing however was the 1996 U.S basketball team. Composed of top level, cream of the crop talent, that was the last team that could run up a 20 point barrage almost at will in a single quarter. After it defeated Brazil in an exhibition game, Oscar Schmidt the country's #1 player and hoops legend proclaimed that it might be another 20 or 30 years before the U.S can be challenged. As of then it seemed a quite accurate prediction.

He never specified, but maybe he meant as long as only top players were the ones playing. Because it's only been 8 years and it's time to realize that the gap has shrunk and might soon be sealed. Top players or not - (Serbia Montenegro has 7 NBA players which it did not make use of). Maybe a starting five of All-NBA caliber players would squeeze out a couple more gold medials in the Olympics and World Championships just missing Oscar's prediction by 4 more years, but they still wouldn't have it easy.

Now I think it's clear that the 2002 World Championship U.S team which finished sixth wasn't upset because the team was mismanaged, rather it wasn't trained to handle legitimate adversity and later legitimate loss. George Karl was just unlucky. At least Larry Brown got to learn from that experience.

Though the U.S still has the best players, the international teams have realized their strenghts and the U.S's weak points. The U.S hoops squads are all makeshift ones. Other teams however are built and put together piece by piece, just as an NBA team would be. They have go-to guys, second options and the likes. And just as the U.S women's team above, they've been together for years. Australia's Shane Heal has been around since the 1992 Olympics.

In essence however, this rapid surge in international hoops play can in part be seen as a result of the NBA's global might and the popularity level it has helped the sport reach. Over the years as the premier league has made itself more and more accessible - overseas scouting, recruiting, training sessions, exhibition games, international TV, etc - it's allowed everyone else to catch on and want to be part of the experience. Especially given the financial rewards.

While it was expected that there would be a day when USA Basketball is not #1, would anyone have fortold that this summer would pose a challenge? Probably not. Perhaps a more important question is did the rest of the world just do an amazing job catching on or was the U.S complacent and careless in upholding its status?

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