King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Without Olympic rings, the world championships are just a bunch of guys playing basketball.
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Aug. 15, 2006 | So I guess we're supposed to care about the world basketball championships starting in Japan Saturday. Is that the deal? Because I'm trying, but it's just not catching fire with me.
I need to be convinced. Someone has to talk me into caring about thrown-together national teams playing in August for medals that don't have Olympic rings on them.
The highlights are nice. LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony dunking on a series of overmatched-looking Lithuanians and Koreans in pre-tournament exhibition games.
Something tells me when the tournament starts it won't be so easy, because international basketball, with its wide lanes and zone defenses, doesn't mesh well with the NBA style of play, which makes it tough on the NBA players, who are all NBA stars precisely because their games mesh so well with the NBA style of play.
There are those among us who consider it some kind of moral failing on the part of Americans in general that our players can't adjust to the way the rest of the world plays, which, because it's the way the rest of the world plays, is somehow morally superior.
It kind of dovetails with the argument that you're a mouth-breathing Neanderthal if you don't get excited by soccer/cycle racing/whatever sport Americans don't care that much about that the person talking happens to really dig. Or something. I have a hard time really focusing on this argument because whenever someone starts to make it I start shooting my gun, driving my SUV and reciting dialog from "Walker, Texas Ranger." Hoowa!
So we Americans struggle in these international competitions, and when that competition is the Olympics, that makes it a lot more interesting than when the U.S. used to roll over the competition like a monster truck.
Monster trucks!
But what's interesting about that is that it's the Olympics, not that it's an international basketball tournament. Because of the alchemy of what we care about, the Olympics are thrilling in a way the exact same competition is not if it's not the Olympics. The difference is the rings.
It's the same thing that makes a match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal a lot more exciting if it happens at Wimbledon than if it happens at Indian Wells, or a Yankees-Dodgers game a lot more interesting at Yankee Stadium in October than in Tampa in March.