King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Olympics: The Dream Team that couldn't shoot straight. Plus: Ginobili can! And: NBC holds the syrup and shows actual events.
Aug. 16, 2004 | Oh good. We still get to talk about the 2003-04 Los Angeles Lakers, only in their reincarnated form, the U.S. men's basketball team.
The Dreamers had their hats handed to them by Puerto Rico Sunday, as you surely know, a 92-73 kneecapping that was every bit as lopsided as that score sounds. The Americans missed more outside shots than a teetotaler at a biker picnic. They were down by 22 at the half, and though they closed to single digits in the fourth quarter, they did so without looking even remotely like they might win.
All of this against Puerto Rico, a small island country that is not, technically speaking, a country. The Americans have gone from being gold-medal locks to being a team that gets routed by a commonwealth. What's next, losing to Delaware?
Except it's hard to write the U.S. off because of all that talent. The construction of the roster is all wrong and the men don't seem to know how to play together as a team, but they've got the best players. Sound familiar?
We've all heard about how outside shooting and team defense are the keys in international play, and the U.S. team is uniquely suited to stink at both, as it did Sunday, leading NBC commentator Doug Collins, the star of the 1972 U.S. team, to whine incessantly in a manner that would have been funny if it hadn't been so tiresome.
I'm not going to pretend to know enough about international play to know whether the talent of Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson and Co. is enough to overcome that disadvantage. But it wouldn't surprise me if it is. The U.S. responded to its last humiliation, in its first pre-Olympics exhibition, with a winning streak, though most of those wins were less than impressive.
It also wouldn't surprise me if the Americans don't win a medal.
It's a well-known story by now that when the balanced roster of stars that coach Larry Brown invited to be the U.S. team mostly begged off, USA Basketball put together the most marketable team it could, rather than the one most likely to win international basketball games.
I understand all the ways that LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade are better for business missing 20-footers than Brent Barry and Michael Finley and Fred Hoiberg are making them. But I'm just wondering: Did anyone ask Reggie Miller what he was doing this month?
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Opening ceremonies [PERMALINK]
I wonder what the Olympic Opening Ceremonies will look like in 40 years. Will the fashion for such spectacle entertainment change or will such events still be the same ponderous, humorless affairs we're stuck with today, the same drama club-meets-modern art lite, people painted silver and pretending to run in slow motion while suspended by wires kind of deal?
Next page: A tribute to DNA! Plus: Ginobili! And: NBC holds the schlock