After America’s third place finish in the 2006 World Championships, the international basketball community couldn’t help but wonder how far Team USA would fall and how long their shameful plummet would take. The answer came to me in the past week and a half as I begrudgingly dragged myself out of bed to watch the “Redeem Team” trounce its various opponents. We have already hit rock bottom.
It was hard for me to watch not only the 2006 World Championships, but the bronze medal performance in the 2004 Olympics and the team’s sixth place finish in the 2002 World Championship as well. While I agreed with the consensus that American pros could not play international-style ball, I never really thought that was a problem. In fact, Jerry Colangelo’s and the rest of USA Basketball’s admission that this was a problem made the situation even worse. The fact of the matter is that the NBA is its own style of basketball, and not even the prospect of embarrassing international performances can change that.
Instead of convincing Lebron James and Kobe Bryant that their games were somehow flawed, USA Basketball would have been better served by gathering 30 of the NCAA’s best players, putting them through the same training program that the NBA players endured, and taking the 12 best players from that group. College players are more team-oriented and the college game is closer to the kind of ball played on the international scene. They wouldn’t have to change much of what they were doing and would have been more inclined to be genuinely interested in it—unlike Kobe Bryant, whose enthusiasm seems a bit contrived.
Furthermore, if the international style of basketball truly is taking over the world, as some experts have suggested, then breeding the next generation of professional players for that style of game would suit our nation’s and the NBA’s best interests anyway. Why bring NBA players who have already surpassed their international counterparts to the Olympics when you can develop college players in a way that will benefit them in a changing basketball landscape.
We will win gold, but it won’t mean anything. We pulled our trump cards out at the last minute rather than adapting to a game we will need to play in the future.
