USA Basketball Tired of This Kind of Dream

SYDNEY, Australia —  That should take care of talk about bringing college players back to the Olympics.

The U.S. men’s basketball team flew home with gold medals, but everyone outside the team knows the U.S. could have lost--perhaps should have lost.

The “a win’s a win” mantra from the U.S. locker room is not so easily accepted elsewhere.

Give the NBA brass this: They knew this day was coming before the near-disaster against Lithuania and the tight finish against France.

“It’s close enough now, a bad game against a really good team, we could lose,” Russ Granik, deputy commissioner of the NBA and president of USA Basketball, said before the quarterfinals. “We’re going to lose a game before too long.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern appeared at the gold-medal game and was told that Alonzo Mourning said before the Olympics the U.S. wouldn’t lose a game in his lifetime.

“I don’t know how long he’s planning to live,” Stern said.

All the talk had been of the Chinese in 2008, when the 7-footers who make up the Walking Great Wall will be in their late 20s and perhaps starring in the NBA.

The scare in Sydney was a surprise.

“Maybe what one might have expected a little bit later on the calendar--like maybe 2004,” Stern said.

Next up on the agenda is a reevaluation of the selection process and preparation of the NBA players who will represent the United States.

“It may be that this is an absolute focal point of us getting ready to even perhaps dedicate more time,” Stern said. “The reality is that in ‘96, the women played for a year together, and that was the way to deal with an Olympic team.”

That obviously isn’t going to happen, but it’s fair to expect more preparation against the European teams that gave the U.S. such fits.

The most stunning thing about the Olympics other than the closeness of the scores--five victories were by 15 points or fewer--was that the U.S. players could not defend players who can’t get a sniff from the NBA.

Sarunas Jasikevicius plays professionally in Barcelona, but as time ran down against Lithuania, one had to wonder if the U.S. could get a stop against him.

Three of the five players on the 2000 NBA all-defensive team were on the Olympic team--Kevin Garnett, Alonzo Mourning and Gary Payton. Jason Kidd was on the second team, and Mourning and Payton are past NBA defensive players of the year.

And yet this team played poor defense much of the tournament, giving up three-point baskets and layups against players who might not play an NBA game.

“I think it’s difficult for them to adjust to new rules, FIBA rules, in a short time,” Lithuania’s Mindaugas Timinskas said. “I mean, with the rules, everything is in our favor, so we had chances to win.”

U.S. Coach Rudy Tomjanovich held plenty of lengthy practices and gave the players only one day off in Sydney, but they didn’t seem to understand the adjustments they’d have to make defensively in a tournament in which zones are permitted and screens and ball movement are more prevalent than one-on-one play.

“They’re so used to not sagging off and helping because of the rules,” U.S. assistant coach Tubby Smith said. “What happens is in a tight situation, when they get stressed and the game’s close, they revert back to what they know best.

“When you’re hugging your man, that’s when you’re most vulnerable to the screen. That’s why we were getting screened so much. Our guys were getting nailed on screens because they don’t understand, if they jump away, it’s going to make me a hard target. But if I stand there hugging the guy and I get cut off, I’m going to get screened.”

The U.S. struggled not only with screens, but with defending three-point shots they didn’t anticipate and coping with the different passing patterns of European teams.

On offense, the U.S. should say thank you to Vince Carter and Ray Allen. Both were late additions--Allen was selected in January, and Carter replaced the injured Tom Gugliotta.

This team lacked a 7-footer and didn’t have as much outside shooting as it needed, and the injured Tim Duncan and Grant Hill would certainly have made a difference.

Injuries played a role in the formation of the Olympic team, but so did players’ decisions about whether to play--perhaps none bigger than the decision of the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant.

“The only disappointment I had this time was Kobe Bryant,” Granik said pointedly and repeatedly, adding that he understood Shaquille O’Neal’s decision because he had played before.

What of Chris Webber and Allen Iverson, who weren’t selected?

Let’s just say that the committee emphasized choosing a group it thought would get along well and avoid any embarrassing behavior.

“That’s one where I’m going to say that the committee’s deliberations are confidential,” Granik said.

Bring back the college players? Don’t think so.

With so many leaving early for the NBA, a team led by, say, Duke’s Shane Battier and Stanford’s Casey Jacobsen not only wouldn’t win the Olympics, it might not win a medal.

Some people would love to see the NBA champion play in the Olympics--but a short summer for the Lakers would have been even shorter if they’d been asked to come. Plus, it would be a collective-bargaining issue.

“I’ll say this,” offered Donnie Nelson, the Dallas Maverick assistant who works with the Lithuanian team. “I think the Vancouver Grizzlies or L.A. Clippers or Dallas Mavericks could come here and have a good chance of winning the gold--maybe not be the favorites, but have a chance. Because it’s a team, like these others. All-star teams are different.”

The basic format isn’t likely to change--NBA players, selected by a USA Basketball committee.

There might be more pressure or incentive to play next time, though, and Carter, for one, said he would love to play again if asked.

Four years later, the rest of the world could be even closer.

Lithuania, for one, was without its three best players--Arvydas Sabonis, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Arturas Karnisovas.

“They are spectacular players,” Timinskas said. “I don’t know if it would have helped. It’s impossible to say.

“It’s unfortunate that we lost the game. We had a really good chance. I don’t know if any other team will be able to come so close to beating [the] Dream Team again.”