SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- With all the happy talk these days about the virtues of international basketball and international players and international work ethic, it should be noted that one foreign national team after another blatantly tanked games here in the Olympic qualifying tournament.

There will be no more laying down like dogs this weekend, because the tournament has reached its semifinals and the four teams left -- USA, Puerto Rico, Canada and Argentina -- are vying for three Olympic berths. But before anyone talks about how much truer to the spirit of the game foreigners seem to be or takes a shot at NBA stars for not going all-out all the time, understand that of the four teams remaining, only Team USA can say it played to win every game.

The Canadians were easily the most calculating squad among the tournament's 10. Despite forging an early seven-point lead against the U.S. on Monday, coach Jay Triano threw in the towel after one quarter by benching Steve Nash -- the tournament's runaway MVP -- for the remainder of the game.

Triano's thinking was that his team would lose whether or not Nash played, so he might as well keep his star fresh for the following night's more attainable contest against Brazil. Triano also rested Nash and leading scorer Rowan Barrett for most of Thursday's overtime loss to Venezuela, in part to protest that tournament organizers had arranged for Canada's day off to be the tournament's first, thereby forcing them to be the only team to play eight games in eight days. (Virgin Islands also had the first day off but was never a serious candidate to advance beyond the first round.)

	Canada's Triano, right, rested Nash, left, for the semifinals.

"This game meant nothing for us," Triano said. "I understand people could get upset, but then something has to be done about the schedule."

Venezuelan coach Nestor Salazar had his own problems. His best player, Oscar Torres, left at halftime for the the airport because the Venezuelans had promised his pro team in Italy he would. Meanwhile, the Virgin Islands were without NBA free-agent guard Raja Bell for the entire tournament because he has yet to secure a new pro contract and feared injury.

Mexico coach Guillermo Vecchio complained that "it wasn't even ethical what Canada did" -- but this is the same coach who allowed Mavs forward and Mexico star Eduardo Najera to sit out his team's 102-92 tournament-ending victory over Brazil because Mexico had been all but eliminated. Mexico did get bounced, of course, but only after later that night when Argentina beat the Dominican Republic.

Argentina clearly didn't go hard every night, either, losing to both Mexico and Venezuela. Spurs guard and Argentine star Manu Ginobili openly acknowledged that his team planned to coast against Team USA, figuring they wouldn't need the win to advance and would be better served saving their legs for when they met this weekend. Puerto Rico made a similar decision against Team USA after falling behind by nine at halftime, resting its two best big men, Jose Ortiz and Daniel Santiago.

At this point, though, it's hard to argue against the strategy of selecting when and against whom to play hard.

Canada, on talent, has no business being in the semifinals ahead of Brazil, and Argentina finished as the second seed despite picking and choosing when it played full-bore. There are times NBA teams have rested their stars in a meaningless regular-season game and I personally watched the Warriors throw away the '92-93 season to land Chris Webber. There are also nights in an 82-game schedule when mental or physical fatigue or simple ennui prompt a team or player to give less than the best. Being a millionaire makes you no more immune than being a thousandaire.

But what has been on display here has been far more calculated with something far more exalted -- national honor -- at stake. Maybe the ends justify the means, but it should be a point of pride that Team USA hasn't ever done that. Especially since points of pride seem to be in such rare supply.

And Ones
Hector Baez, Dominican Republic coach after his team's 102-72 dismantling by Argentina: "We wanted to provide experience to our six young guys, who will be the ones producing for us in the next four years. We threw them to the lions and the lions devoured them. The only thing they didn't eat was their shoes, which apparently didn't have much salt." ... Watching the officials brought in from all over the world to work this tournament should quell anyone's thoughts that the NBA doesn't have the best and most well-trained referees in the world, or that two-man crews aren't far inferior to the three-man system. The officials here were prepped for the tournament with a one-hour meeting in which the points of emphasis were to keep the coaches in their coaching boxes and to make sure the athletic trainers did not sit on the bench if they weren't wearing long pants.

Ric Bucher covers the NBA for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at ric.bucher@espnmag.com. Also, send a question for possible use on ESPNEWS.