By KEVIN B. BLACKISTONE,
Sports Commentary
LAS VEGAS – For a short while early Saturday afternoon in Cox Pavilion at UNLV, the best rebounder in the NBA – check that, the best rebounder in the world – leaned against a basket standard in his blue U.S. Olympic team practice togs as his Beijing-bound teammates ran fast-break weaves. Then, he disappeared.
“Seen Dwight Howard?” a pro basketball newspaper reporter asked me after walking into the gym a bit after the U.S. team’s practice started.
“He was here,” I said from my perch in the bleachers, looking around with some surprise.
We then began to suspect Howard was asked to become invisible because he was the only Adidas endorser on a roster filled with Nike guys and Nike was in the house filming a special commercial.
Turned out our conspiracy theory wasn’t as chewy as the truth: Howard wasn’t participating in the Olympic team’s first practice this summer because he was suffering from a stress fracture in his sternum. Six weeks before tipoff against China, our Olympic basketball team is without its only center.
Oh my god! When will our long national nightmare ever end?
“We should be fine,” the best basketball player on the U.S. team – check that, the best basketball player in the world – Kobe Bryant assured afterward.
Note: The 2004 team that brought back only bronze was anchored by Tim Duncan, who was second in rebounding in the NBA that season and just outside the top five in scoring.
Size wasn’t the Nightmare Team’s problem. Size won’t haunt this collection, playing to be known as Redeem Team, either.
Carlos Boozer doesn’t stand seven-feet but he ranked 10th on the rebounding list last season. The other big man in red, white and blue, Chris Bosh, was 28th. Only two foreigners who will be in Beijing ranked as high -- Australia’s Andrew Bogut and Lithuania’s Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
The problem U.S. basketball has come to face is two-fold. One is its players' lack of respect for the improved ability of foreign players. After Greece, and the three NBA MVPs won in a row by Steve Nash (two) and Dirk Nowitzki, they can’t help but recognize. Consider them scared straight.
“Going through what we went through in 2004 and 2006 (losing at World Championships), you appreciate things more and you respect the international game a lot more,” said Dwyane Wade, a member of the Nightmare Team four summers ago. “We have to respect their game.”
QINHUANGDAO, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Natasha Kai of the USA controls the ball during a Women's Group G preliminary match between Norway and the USA at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 6, 2008 in Quinhuangdao, China. Norway defeated the USA 2-0. (Photo by Noriko Hayakusa/Getty Images)
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QINHUANGDAO, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Shannon Boxx of the USA controls the ball during a Women's Group G preliminary match between Norway and the USA at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 6, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Norway defeated the USA 2-0. (Photo by Noriko Hayakusa/Getty Images)
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QINHUANGDAO, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Amy Rodriguez of the USA controls the ball during a Women's Group G preliminary match between Norway and the USA at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 6, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Norway defeated USA 2-0. (Photo by Noriko Hayakusa/Getty Images)
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QINHUANGDAO, CHINA - AUGUST 06: USA players react after the defeat of Women's Group G match between Norway and USA during the football event on Day -2 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 6, 2008 in Qinhuangdao, China. Norway defeated USA 2-0. (Photo by Noriko Hayakusa/Getty Images)
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Uighurs play cards near a billboard displaying the Beijing Olympic Games mascots in Kashgar, China, Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008. Kashgar is 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) west of Beijing, in the far western region of Xinjiang _ a vast, rugged territory home to a Muslim minority called the Uighurs. They have a long history of pushing for independence, and Chinese authorities have blamed a series of sporadic bombings, shootings and riots in recent years on Uighur extremist groups.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
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TIANJIN, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Canadian Women's team coach Even Pellerud looks on during Women's Group E match between Canada and Argentina during the football event on Day -1 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Tianjin, China. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
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TIANJIN, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Canadian Players pose for photographs before Women's Group E match between Canada and Argentina during the football event on Day -1 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Canada beat Argentina 2-1. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
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TIANJIN, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Mariela Coronel of Argentina (R) and Clare Rustad of Canada compete for the ball during Women's Group E match between Canada and Argentina during the football event on Day -1 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Canada defeated Argentina 2-1. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
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TIANJIN, CHINA - AUGUST 06: Christine Sinclair of Canada and Vanina Correa (L) and Eva Gonzalez of Argentina compete for the ball during Women's Group E match between Canada and Argentina during the football event on Day -1 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Tianjin, China. Canada beat Argentina 2-1. (Photo by Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)
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Canada's Tyler Christopher attends a training session for the Canadian Olympic athletics squad in Singapore August 6, 2008. The Canadian athletics squad is training in Singapore in preparation for the Beijing Olympics 2008. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash (SINGAPORE)
Reuters
That doesn’t simply mean the way the rest of the world plays -- big guys shooting from way outside -- but the manner in which it prepares to play. The other squads are far less like the pick-up teams the U.S. has been putting together. That is the added element this time around that may have been missed the most, though unknowingly.
When the Olympics first decided in 1992 to let NBA stars play for gold (so the Olympics could become more flush with green) and the U.S. decided, after the setback in Seoul, that it could no longer dispatch boys to do a man’s job, team didn’t matter. The U.S.’s talent -- highlighted by Jordan, Magic and Bird -- was too overwhelming. The first game -- to see how much they could blowout an opponent -- and the gold medal game, for historical purposes, were all that were worth watching.
By 2000 in Sydney, that was no longer the case. I remember a group of us racing across Olympic Park to the basketball arena as it appeared Lithuania was about to upset Alonzo Mourning, Jason Kidd and Vince Carter. Mourning & Co. held on by two.
Greece was just a big fat disaster.
Enter Suns exec Jerry Colangelo and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. An emotional Colangelo told me on a special edition of XM Satellite Radio’s Basketball and Beyond with Coach K from Las Vegas, which will air the end of the month on XM’s Sports Nation channel 144, that he personally invited the players on this team to sacrifice their offseasons for three years to restore the luster to U.S. Olympic basketball. Finally, we’ll see U.S. players who, like their competitors, have been getting to know each other for years rather than a few weeks.
“We want to show the world that we can play the game the right way and play as a team,” said Jason Kidd, who is 44-0 on the international stage. “I think that’s what the international teams have started to understand to play as a team and win as a team. If we can get to that level, and we showed that last summer, we can be as good as anyone in the world.”
If they don’t, they’ll have to find yet another approach, like lobby for lacrosse to be entered as an Olympic sport. That’s a sport the U.S. dominates enough to, as it long did in basketball, just show up and win.
Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, a host on XM Satellite Radio, a frequent sports opinionist on other outlets and the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Hyattsville, Md.
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