INDIANAPOLIS -- It began with a furor over insurance costs and one Cuban's crusade to bar several players from risking their expensive limbs for an international tournament that would be largely ignored in America's basketball heartland.

It ended with a heated debate about on-court liabilities.

With nationwide shame.

With not just a furor but a full-blown crisis and scramble to understand What Went Wrong for the formerly unsinkable beast of international hoops.

	People around the NBA marveled at the way Argentina's Emanuel Ginobili attacked the basket.

It all demands one last trip around the Worlds, combing through the buzz words below.

Absentees
In perhaps a precursor of how weird things would get, two of the players most controversially missing from the event landed in the same building recently. While Team USA was commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the original Dream Team by going 6-3 for a sixth-place finish, Kobe Bryant and Wang Zhizhi both wound up balling at Loyola Marymount.

Not on the same day, but both were unexpected pop-ins at LMU workouts.

Bryant didn't want to commit a month of his summer to national-team duty, but he did swoop in for some 1-on-1, 2-on-2 and 3-on-3 drills, matched mostly against Cleveland's Ricky Davis.

Wang joined in, too, finally leaving his L.A. summer hideaway for some top-level workouts after his expected omission from China's roster for the Worlds.

Chinese intimates never expected the AWOL center to play in Indianapolis, especially after the government decreed that Wang would have to return home for the Asian Games after the Worlds. Hoping instead to participate in his first NBA training camp, Wang now awaits Dallas' expected sign-and-trade deal -- most likely in exchange for a first-round pick -- that would provide him a new NBA employer.

The Manu
Emanuel Ginobili was indeed The Manu among foreigners at the Worlds, in terms of impressing folks who hadn't seen him play yet. People couldn't stop talking about the way Ginobili drove the ball, took mid-air hits and still finished so strongly at the rim.

It'll be interesting to track now whether Spurs coach Gregg Popovich opts to start Ginobili at shooting guard over Steve Smith when the season starts. Remember, last season Popovich actually wanted to start Tony Parker at point guard right out of training camp … only to opt for Antonio Daniels in a bow to seniority.

Daniels wound up lasting only four games as a starter, and Pop might be too excited to hold off that long after this.

From here, maybe the most amazing thing about the Manu hoopla is that Ginobili, unlike so many international stars, doesn't have the purest stroke. He had everyone drooling in this tournament despite 3-for-28 shooting on 3-pointers.

Difference makers
Shaquille O'Neal for sure. Tim Duncan, too. Jason Kidd, three. Put any one of those fellows on Team USA and the hosts almost certainly would have won the thing.

Not so sure about Tracy McGrady, though. Or Kevin Garnett. Or even Mike Bibby, who was summoned but declined after the injured Kidd pulled out.

Even with reinforcements, the Yanks would still have been facing problems. Plural. They would still have had a B-list roster, a coach in a slump and insufficient practice time to develop the chemistry and team play needed in a game with different rules and ever-improving competition.

Stars
Yao Ming made an attempt to speak English at every opportunity and made a pretty fair first impression on the floor. China lost seven of its eight games, but it's not Yao's fault that -- for all those dozens of 7-foot prospects the Chinese have -- his coaches can't find two decent guards.

Pau Gasol, unlike the United States, didn't cower after getting tagged with one black eye. More than the ring around his right socket, you noticed that Gasol has bulked up a bit. His confidence in Memphis should likewise swell nicely after Gasol helped Spain beat the Yanks in the fifth-place game.

New Zealand's Pero Cameron landed on the all-tournament team and probably even deserved it. The Kiwis had to have somebody on there after qualifying at Australia's expense, losing Sean Marks to an eye injury and still giving Yugoslavia a scare in the semifinals. Cameron isn't 6-foot-8, as listed -- and no way he's as light as 265 pounds, as listed. But he's fun to watch and has a serious feel for the game and the Haka, the Maori tribal dance New Zealand's team does before every game.

Yugoslavia's silky Marko Jaric, meanwhile, is ready to help the Clippers right away, and Brazil's Tiago Splitter, a 17-year-old center, is already being monitored by NBA scouts.

Then there's Argentina's Fabricio Oberto, who hung a tidy 28 points on Vlade Divac in Sunday's final. Oberto, 26, shot a mere 72.2 percent from the field over nine games, scoring at will inside Sunday with a succession of crafty, Divac-style dekes and scoops. All of which makes it look as though Pamesa Valencia of the Spanish League got the bargain of the offseason by signing the 6-10 center to a three-year deal.

Fear factor
Not even Angola, the original recipients of Charles Barkley's Welcome To The Pro Paint elbow, feared this Team USA. Argentina's big men, in particular, looked totally fearless when matched against the hosts. Which is a big reason why we saw three U.S. defeats in a span of four games after Lithuania had to settle for coming close twice in Sydney.

"Even when they were doing it (in 2000), at some level the Lithuanian players didn't believe it was actually happening," said Donnie Nelson, Lithuania's longtime assistant coach. "The fear factor is totally gone now."

Politics
Can't have an international sporting event without incidents, and this one had plenty: