A decade ago, USA Basketball suffered its worst humiliation ever: a bronze medal in the Athens Olympics. After going undefeated en route to three straight gold medals, the Americans lost three games in one tournament. Most nations would be thrilled with bronze. For the United States, it was a stunning disappointment fresh off the heels of a disastrous 2002 FIBA World Championship effort in which the Americans finished No. 6 despite hosting the tourney. (In fact, the United States had to compete in and win the 2003 FIBA Americas Championship just to make the Olympic tournament. The United States, qualifying like it were Canada or something!)
There were a lot of problems with that 2004 squad. It was coached by Larry Brown who, bless his soul, is not fit for coaching a veritable team of All-Stars for a couple months. He's a project coach. Furthermore, he hadn't coached Team USA in 2002 -- he was brought on fresh in 2004 for a team full of players he'd never coached. Furthermore, he's Larry Brown, king of "right way" basketball that insists point guards move like molasses in the halfcourt and run system ball. That works on squads who can absorb the long learning curve. It doesn't work for a collection of All-Stars who get a few weeks of practice and a handful of exhibitions together. It also serves to neuter the strongest asset American players have: superior athleticism.
It wasn't all Brown's fault, though. That roster was, in retrospect, hilarious. Tim Duncan anchored the squad, which you'd think was a good thing. But he seemed wholly disengaged once things turned sour, and who could blame him? He was Dante in Clerks. Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury were the team's guards. I repeat, Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury were the team's guards. The NBA veterans on the team were Shawn Marion, Lamar Odom and Richard Jefferson. Everyone else was 22 years old or younger. LeBron James, who earned a "LeBronze" nickname from the affair, was fricking 19 years old and had just wrapped up his rookie season. Dwyane Wade had similarly just completed his first year and also happened to be the third and final guard on the roster.
Of course Team USA only won bronze. What did you expect?
After that embarrassment, USA Basketball got religion and, more importantly, got Jerry Colangelo. After retiring from the Suns, he vowed to remake the American basketball program into an eternal power that would never again find itself listlessly competing in major tournaments. The pitch was that the team would function in four-year Olympic cycles. If you wanted to play in the Olympics, you'd need to play in the World Championship (reborn as the World Cup this year). Furthermore, the team would get together in the in-between summers for a camp in Las Vegas to build the camaraderie and on-court rapport. Most importantly, a coach would be set for an entire cycle so that you wouldn't see a new headmaster for the first time in a major tournament.
The second coup of USA Basketball was to land Mike Krzyzewski as head coach. He committed for the first cycle, then the second, and now he's committed through 2016. He just might coach Team USA forever. As a highly respected coach, he avoids a lot of the drama that can come from tough rotation decisions.
And the results are plain to see: after a hiccup in the 2006 World Championship, Team USA won gold in the 2008 Olympics, the 2010 Worlds and the 2012 Olympics. Three straight successes after three straight failures -- that's a big turnaround.
But when you look at the circumstances of those failures (as documented above) and those successes, you begin to question whether any of the program's structural programs have really been resolved.
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Fiba World Cup
The most striking thing about the 2008 and 2012 teams is how talented they are. That speaks to two important things: Colangelo and Coach K have been able to pull the NBA's top American talent for the Olympic tournaments and the NBA's American talent is huge right now. In 2004, the national team lacked some of its very best players, like Kevin Garnett, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd. The youngsters meant to fill in the gaps were still really green and totally unfamiliar with the international style (including the odd rule differences, several of which have now been ameliorated). The 2008 squad had Kobe, Chris Paul, LeBron and Dwight Howard, who had just finished Nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5 respectively in NBA MVP voting. The 2012 squad had the top five Americans on the 2011-12 NBA MVP ballot. The 2004 squad? Duncan had finished No. 2 in MVP voting. LeBron was No. 9, and Melo finished tied for No. 14. No one else on the roster was anywhere to be found. Only two Team USA players had even been All-Stars the prior year (Duncan and Iverson).
The new golden age of basketball has directly fueled Team USA. The league is replete with all-timers, and most of the young ones are American. Of course Team USA is doing better! Any team that brings LeBron and Durant to a tournament has a mandate to win. If Larry Brown had Peak LeBron and Peak Durant, as Coach K did in 2012, he'd win too!
What's impressive about Coach K -- and where many others would have failed -- is that he can take a raw team like the one he had in 2010 to the gold and can fold in all this talent with nary a complaint from any of the players. The stars who might get offended by their place in the pecking order excuse themselves early. (Rajon Rondo is the poster boy for this.) Likewise, Colangelo has rarely failed to get a star he wanted for the Olympic team. Even vets have lined up at the chance.
The problem is that the biggest stars are still skipping the World Cup. Unless he plays in 2019 or 2023, LeBron will finish his career never having won a FIBA world title. Durant pulled out for no apparent reason this season after the team had lost its second and third best players (Paul George and Kevin Love). Team USA's best player in the 2014 World Cup, Anthony Davis, is a dude who graduated from high school three years ago. There's one NBA MVP on the team (Derrick Rose), but he's barely played in the past two NBA seasons and will likely be coming off of the bench in Spain. The NBA's second-best Plumlee is on the team. I repeat, the NBA's second-best Plumlee is on the team. This team is not deep enough to carry a Christian Laettner Memorial White Duke Guy on the roster. Mason Plumlee is on the roster because Coach K actually thinks he might need him. That's a haunting reality.
This roster is proof that despite Colangelo and K's best efforts, the "Olympic cycle" system is not going to happen. American stars just do not care enough about the FIBA World title to show up every four years. The Olympics are the pinnacle for these guys. LeBron is seemingly satisfied without a world title. Durant apparently prioritized wrapping a quarter-billion dollar shoe deal over leading the team to Spain. Love chose to resolve his trade demands instead of playing. LaMarcus Aldridge and Blake Griffin chose R&R. The environment and attitudes in the United States are just different. There's no getting around that.
Team USA can keep winning titles and is a favorite in Spain despite the late roster woes, but it won't be because of the structure of the USA Basketball program. It'll be because the hottest young Americans in the NBA want to elbow onto the Olympic roster. It'll be because those hottest young Americans are still overwhelmingly the best players in the world. It'll be because Coach K hung around, providing stability and experience. It'll be because the coach and GM are on the same page. It'll be because even as its lowest point, with an Iverson-Marbury backcourt, the United States did still win bronze.
But it won't be because USA Basketball is fixed. USA Basketball is not fixed.
The vow of creating a four-year cycle that put an emphasis on stars participating in the Worlds has been neutered as stars opt out in non-Olympic years. We're still seeing second-tier rosters coming out of the program for major international tournaments. The trophy case looks a lot better, but there is still an underlying problem here and eventually it will bite Team USA in the ass and deliver silver, bronze or worse. Again.
FIBA World Cup
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The silver lining is that FIBA has doltishly adopted FIFA's qualifying system, creating international windows throughout the calendar year by which nations will compete for spots in the World Cup and Olympics. Beginning in 2017, the windows are in November, February, June and September. When it comes to the NBA, that is known as NO, NO, PROBABLY NOT and SURE. By winning this World Cup, Team USA can avoid that qualification nonsense in 2017 and 2018. Winning the 2019 World Championship would prevent having to qualify for the 2022 Olympics.
But one slip-up in the knockout rounds this year or in 2019 and you have Colangelo or his heir asking the NBA to provide its stars during the NBA season. You'll have a heckuva lot more NBA franchisees cracking knuckles and refusing to allow it.
In other words, FIBA might make itself totally irrelevant to Americans before Team USA finds itself in the loser's circle. It's a race toward failure.
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(It bears mentioning that the USA Basketball program below the senior men's team has been completely transformed in recent years. USA Basketball deserves heaps of credit for that.)