Wow, the bashing came out quick! 'Dream Team' woes just beginning COMMENTARY By Mike Celizic NBCSports.com contributor Updated: 6:11 p.m. ET Aug. 3, 2004I don’t want to hear about this being just a practice game, and I don’t want to hear about how Italy was sky-high for it and how the United States players were still trying to learn each others’ first names. This is as low as it’s ever been for what was once the proudest and most dominant team in U.S. Olympic history. advertisement And it could – probably will – get worse. I’ll say it now. It won’t be an upset if the United States doesn’t win Olympic gold. It will be an upset if they do. This could even be the first Dream Team to finish out of the medals completely. After getting drubbed by Italy, team captain Allen Iverson said, “This is a wakeup call for us. I think we need something like this to understand it’s not going to be easy.” ALSO ON THIS STORY U.S. men's basketball team falls to Italy There wasn’t much else he could say, but if this is a wakeup call, it’s coming four years too late. The wakeup call was in Sydney, when France and Lithuania both nearly beat the United States. It was two years ago in Indianapolis, when Team USA lost three games and finished sixth in the world championships. If they didn’t hear it then, it’s too late now. The Olympics begin in less than two weeks. The team –- too small, too young, and too individualistic –- can’t be changed. Neither can its fate. For years, I’ve heard NBA apologists, blinded by their fawning adoration of the individual skills of U.S. ballplayers, sneer at suggestions that the end of U.S. hoops hegemony was near. Sure, a team of NBA players nearly lost to France in Sydney four years ago. And, okay, maybe another NBA team finished sixth in the last world championships. But, they insisted with unmerited arrogance, to suggest that the rest of the world was catching up to U.S. basketball was simply absurd. I wrote four years ago that the United States could lose a game in Sydney, and they nearly did –- twice. Even before that, I wrote that the time when the United States could no longer just throw any 12 NBA starters out on the court and expect to win was closer than most people thought. It’s not that I’m smarter than anyone else. It’s just that I listened to experts in international basketball who have seen this day coming –- and have been working to bring it about -- for two decades. Years ago, they outlined how the world would catch up, and they’ve been right at every turn. But few people in this country listened. Instead, they bought into the myth that the United States turned out such surpassingly gifted individual players it couldn’t lose if it tried. Few ever considered that winning games takes more than talent. It takes teamwork, the kind we say this spring when Detroit dismantled L.A. The kind we’re seeing now when the third-best team in Europe takes apart a team of NBA players. The stars of the NBA clearly agreed with those who said they were so great individually they couldn’t lose. So convinced were most of the biggest names in the game that the United States is three universes ahead of everybody else, they didn’t even bother to accept invitations to the Olympic team. Why bother the United States didn’t need them to win? Shaquille O’Neal couldn’t be bothered. Kenyon Martin wanted to be around to consult with his agent on his new contract. Vince Carter sent his regrets, as did Tracy McGrady, Mike Bibby, Kevin Garnett, Ben Wallace and Jermaine O’Neal, all of whom concocted excuses on the fly. Karl Malone needed to rest – an honest excuse, in his case. USA Basketball collected the best of what was left of U.S. talent, led by Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson. The team that was put together for Larry Brown to attempt to mold into gold medalists was long on flash, short on experience, shorter on maturity, but now, thanks to Italy, overflowing with embarrassment. The score was 95-78, and that represents a comeback for the Americans, who trailed by as many as 24 points in the second half of Tuesday’s exhibition. It was only a practice game, but it can’t be explained away or dismissed as meaningless. Getting beat a little by a foreign powerhouse in a meaningless game might be understandable. Getting the snot kicked out of you by the Italians, is not. Italy is known for many wonderful things, from shoes to Ferraris to sublime art to linguine with clam sauce, but basketball isn’t among them. Italy is in the Olympics by dint of finishing third in Europe behind Spain and Lithuania. But that’s good enough to thrash a team of NBA players. If the U.S. players say that this loss doesn’t matter, they’re lying. In losing so badly they’ve lost the last shred of whatever intimidation factor remained to them. That roar you hear is the rest of the world celebrating the exposure of Team USA as an over-hyped, under-talented fraud. And now the words that Carmelo Anthony threw out to the media on July 27 when the Americans began practice, hang like bulls eyes on every player’s back. "We're guaranteeing a gold medal,” said Anthony with youthful exuberance. “We're bringing it back." He’s young and can be excused for not knowing what he was up against. And that’s another problem with this team. It's so laden with young players that its average age is just 23.6. There’s no experience there. There’s also no size or muscle. But there is Stephon Marbury, a point guard whose idea of getting his teammates involved in the game is to have them stand around and watch his brilliant moves. And there’s Allen Iverson, the captain who sets the example for everyone by arriving late for meetings. And LeBron James, a terrific player, but still one year out of high school. In the old days, when “Dream Team” still meant something, the other teams were the lambs being led out for public slaughter. It’s likely that the brilliance of Magic and Bird and Jordan and Malone and Barkley and Ewing and the rest and the dominance of that 1992 team in Barcelona still acts to convince today’s players that they are just as good, that they are invincible. If that first NBA team hadn’t been so darned good, its successors may have taken the international tournaments more seriously. But today’s players seem to believe that because they made a couple of All-Star teams, they’re just as good as men who were among the best players –- and team players –- to ever play the game. They can’t believe that any longer. They have to know they’re in for the battle of their lives. But losing to Italy wasn’t, as Iverson said, a wake-up call. It was the trumpet of impending doom. I’d say I hate to say I told you so, but I’d be lying. Mike Celizic is a frequent contributor to NBCSports.com and a free-lance writer based in New York. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5594389/
It's at least half true. That every squad since 1992 has gotten notably weaker should be noted. Original Dream Team doesn't need to be listed. 1996: Dream, Shaq, Admiral Malone, Barkley Hill, Pippen Miller, Penny, Mitch Richmond Payton, Stockton (virtually all in their prime) 2000: Zo, Baker SAR, Dice KG, Carter, Ray Allen, Steve Smith Payton, Kidd, Tim Hardaway Anyone else notice the huge dropoff? I mean, the qualifying team from last year would have pasted this roster night in and night out. Evan
The biggest problem with our team is that no one can play without the ball. I know we don't have the best players other than Duncan, but surely there are some second level stars who can move without the ball, cut to the basket, catch and shoot. Playing the role of a "role player", except theoretically be better at the job due to having greater talent.
I don't buy the youth argument. Didn't the college kids representing the US before '92 were gold favorites too?
Look at the '84 team, the last gold medalists before the Dream Team. Steve Alford, Patrick Ewing, Vern Fleming, Michael Jordan; Joe Kleine, Jon Koncak, Chris Mullin, Sam Perkins, Alvin Robertson, Wayman Tisdale, Jeff Turner, Leon Wood Half of the team turned out to be scrubs in the NBA. They still beat Spain by 31 points in the Final. So the "not top NBA talents" argument is also crap. Whoever says the world isn't catching up is dreaming.
Yeah, but looking back, that team had a good mix. A couple of bigtime scorers (Ewing & Jordan), a couple of sweet outside shooters (Fleming Alford and Mullin), a couple of inside/outside post players in Perkins and Tisdale, a couple of big goofy lane filling whiteys in Kleine and Koncak and a nice lockdown defender in the backcourt in Robertson. I don't even know who in the blue hell Jef Turner is. I do know that Leon Wood was a big bust. In fact, didn't he become a referee?
He sure did. http://www.fullerton.edu/alumni/vvWood.htm Jeff Turner was a stiff for the magic for a long time and I think may have had some garbage time in the 95 finals.
One report talked about all the traveling calls on the U.S. team. The NBA allows players, especially the stars, to take so many steps it looks like hopscotch. The international game stresses fundamentals, and that is the crack of doom for U.S. players.
The usual excuses for the US failure in recent years are these: 1. The top players aren't playing (by far probably the most used excuse) 2. They aren't a good mix (your argument) 3. They are too inexperienced 4. They don't have time to practice IMO, only #2 is valid. #4 might also have some merit. But then other teams have the same problem too. Anyway, if the American players are so much better than the rest of the world, a team of average NBA players should still beat the heck out of the world. This team is clearly above average in terms of NBA talent level.
Be it wakeup call or "trumpet of impending doom," at least now we'll get to see what these guys do with it. If this board had picked an Olympic squad, it sure as hell wouldn't look like this one, I bet (with apologies to Duncan). Hopefully a few losses will challenge the best of the best to resume turning out for the Games, but if it doesn't and the U.S. team continues getting embarrased, it can only be good for the sport as a whole, because SOMETHING will get changed.
a few things i didn't like about the article: a) he says no one wanted to admit the rest of the world was catching up? i swear i've heard that all the time for the last 4 or 5 years. maybe i'm just reading different people than he is. b) the U.S. team was "exposed" as under-talented? again, maybe it's just me, but it seems anyone who hasn't been living under a rock knew that. it didn't really take a genius to figure that out with decline or decommit after decline or decommit. we're freaking sending okafur over there. c) he seems to be enjoying the U.S. losing. d) the b*stard said malone's excuse was ok (now i really hate him). Easy, as for your top 4 excuses, while #1 is definitely valid (because we obviously aren't sending our best) it is true that we still have enough talent. but #2 is huge. even though it's the third time i've said it in 24 hours, a regular team from the NBA would do much better. does anyone think if the italian national team played a season in the nba against actual cohesive, nicely put together (well for the most part) nba teams that they wouldn't break the record for fewest wins? is there any national team that could get 20 wins (maybe serbia with peja and a few others on it)? it's obvious there is a disconnect from international bball and how people turn out in the nba and this is probably the biggest factor. edit: and DAMN that 2000 olympic team sucked. i was blinded by remembering kg and vince, but SAR, baker, hardaway, steve smith? geez, from a talent standpoint they may have actually fielded a worse team that year.
Notice I'm not saying that those things aren't true. I am saying that they shouldn't be valid excuses. There is no excuse not to win IF you have far superior talent. You can argue that the 1st Dream Team wasn't a good mix either. But they won. Now these aren't first tier talents. But if American basketball is so much superior than others, then a 2nd tier team should also beat anybody hands down. In my earlier post, I've pointed out the college team with half of the guys who couldn't crack a starting lineup in the NBA won by 31 points in the '84 Olympics. That shows you how far superior American basketball was at that time. Not any more. It's a fact. Whoever denies it is dreaming.
the problem with USA basketball is that most of our youngsters grow up trying to be a flashy 1 one 1 type player, while the rest of the world practices jump shots and free throws. In international basketball they play zone, so if you can't knock down the open shot, they will collapse on the big men underneath and dare you to beat them from outside...and nobody on that team is a spot up shooter.
The world is no doubt, catching up. But if we sent our top players, we'd still have an average margin of victory of 25 or 30+, and a lot of this kind of talk wouldn't happen for another 5-10 years.
I wish they could put a whole NBA team in the olympics. Fill the wholes left by foreign born players on the team with other american players but basically just keep any NBA team intact. I bet they'd dominate. Especially a solid team like the Pistons.
Send the Utah Jazz. Their team would be: PG: Mo Williams SG: Raja Bell SF: Matt Harpring PF: Carlos Boozer C: Curtis Borchardt Without foreigners, that team stinks like hell. But with Sloan, they can probably compete for a playoff spot.
Flawed though this team may be, I'm still gonna root like hell for 'em. USA all the way, you cocky foreign bastards. Lets get that gold.
