America's Basketball Loss - lesson in humility

Time for Americans to take basketball lessons from world
By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

ATHENS, Greece ?- After Team USA was vanquished, humiliated, then booed off the court for good measure, Manu Ginobili, the Argentine superstar, tried to soothe a nation's basketball soul by saying everything would be all right.

This is how low USA Basketball has sunk. They're feeling sorry for us.

Ginobili, who probably should be the basketball purist's favorite player in the world, was hardly being derisive about American basketball.

He was sincere. He was reveling in the moment of being the hero of the first team to beat the ?- ahem ?- Dream Team in an Olympic tournament.

But he was trying to explain how a team with just one player with NBA experience could so thoroughly thrash the USA.

He was assessing everything wrong with the NBA and what needs to be righted if it wants to continue playing in international tournaments.

"Honestly, the NBA is better than this," Ginobili said after scoring 29 points to lead the way to an 89-81 victory that relegated the United States to today's bronze-medal game. "The NBA is played with rules that highlight individual talent.

"Here, to be sure to win, the (United States) has got to bring their best. It's the only way. In many ways, the NBA is tougher. But in some ways, this is way tougher."

Consider that lesson No. 1.

This is team basketball. This is training camps, zone rotations, making the extra pass and keeping fresh bodies out there instead of stroking egos.

Ginobili, for example, scorched the United States for 13 points in the first quarter Friday. What did he do the second quarter?

He sat. For the entire quarter. He cheered his teammates. Then, he came in without tripping over his ego and finished with 29.

Contrast that with what happened at the final buzzer. Some of the American players tried to gather the team for a huddle at midcourt.

Lamar Odom walked away, frowning and glaring at the Argentina bench.

When Stephon Marbury walked toward Odom and tried to bring him into the huddle, Odom pushed his arm away and glared some more.

If only someone who mattered, such as NBA commissioner David Stern, would pay attention to this. The team. And the non-team.

The team game. And the non-team game.


Too many mistakes
But it became apparent after Friday's loss to Argentina that the biggest problem with American basketball is not the litany of things that scripted this 2004 downfall long before it happened. We have talked about the outside shooting, point guard woes, selection system and the superstars who passed on the Games.

But the biggest problem was excuses. Even after getting slapped silly by a team that was fundamentally better, played a more exciting brand of basketball, was more unselfish and, frankly, better coached, no one stated the obvious.

It's time American players learn from the international players. At the international level, they do it right. We don't. Instead, all we heard were excuses, including, sadly, from the commissioner.

"I think they're getting it," Stern said at halftime of Friday night's game.

He was referring to the concept of team-first basketball. Well, the Americans did end up getting it, but not like Stern was talking about.

Are the international teams more fundamentally sound?

"Oh, no, no, no," Stern said. "It's not about fundamentals. It's about cohering."

Cohering? Yeah, and it's about strateegery, right?

USA coach Larry Brown blamed officiating. So did assistant Gregg Popovich.

"I can't make sense of it," Popovich said. "How can you make sense of that?"

OK. So Tim Duncan got jobbed on some calls. The bigger question is, what could USA Basketball have been thinking turning the best power forward on the planet into the only center on this team?


Conspiracy theory
Even on television, Doug Collins was intimating some kind of conspiracy theory against Duncan and the United States. Having a hard time letting go of 1972, are we, Doug?

Collins talked about one official calling all three U.S. losses in this tournament. How about we talk about the fact that there were three losses?

All we heard were excuses.

Only Ginobili among the Argentines had NBA experience. Two others, Luis Scola and Fabricio Oberto, will be there soon. Still, the talent didn't come close to the Americans.

But the Argentines had skill, particularly shooting. They made beautiful cuts, turning the beginning of the third quarter into a clinic on patience, finding the open man and hitting the backdoor cuts.

They packed in a 2-3 zone and dared the Americans to shoot, which they couldn't.

"When we enter an international tournament, we expect to win now," Oberto said. "What we just did is important, because we beat NBA players. But we went out there confident and calm. They never really broke our defense. We know we deserve to be on the floor with them."

The question is, do the Americans deserve to be on the floor with a team that played as beautifully as Argentina?


Excuses aplenty
Most U.S. players didn't pass through the interview area to answer the postgame call. Those who did made excuses. The commissioner had the gall to blame the public and media for criticisms of this team.

Remarkably, the most stand-up one of the bunch was Allen Iverson.

Give him credit on this night. Iverson has been as much of the problem as anyone, but, to be fair, this loss seemed to shock him into some kind of revelation.

"I've seen that it's just as special for those guys," Iverson said. "They approach it as an honor. You're supposed to approach it as an honor."

Just 12 years after the original Dream Team showed the world how to play the game, this was a night the world showed us.

Too bad everyone who mattered was making excuses instead of paying attention.

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