Sam Smith

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Tuesday, August 19
Updated: August 24, 8:19 AM ET
 
Brown, Duncan will lead the way to Athens

By Sam Smith
Special to ESPN.com

As the U.S. men's basketball team begins qualifying for the 2004 Olympics on Wednesday in Puerto Rico -- can you believe we have to qualify and Argentina doesn't? -- there has to be one hope for America's chances for an Olympic gold medal.

Larry Brown
Larry Brown's plan for Team USA is to pressure the ball ...
Tim Duncan better not get hurt before next season. Or Shaq better change his mind and decide to play.

Yes, as ridiculous and frightening as it might seem, one or two dominant inside players might be the only difference now between the NBA and the rest of the world. Not in talent. But in the style that results in winning an international competition.

In talent, the NBA ought to win every international game it plays by 40 points. And I am going on record now saying this U.S. team in the Olympic qualifying tournament --Gosh, that's still hard to say. NBA players have to qualify? The Dream Team must be rolling over on their bank books -- is going to win easily. That's right, we're coming after Uruguay.

OK, the competition in the Americas is not quite what the United States faced last summer in Indianapolis at the World Championships. Dirk Nowitzki and Peja Stojakovic, legitimate NBA All-Stars, were playing for their respective countries. Of course, the U.S. team was whipped by an Argentina team that didn't have a player who could start in the NBA. Manu Ginobili will eventually, but he never did last season with the San Antonio Spurs. And Argentina kicked out the U.S. team, which promptly checked out even though the tournament wasn't over.

There's no chance of that happening this season with Larry Brown as coach. He'll wrestle them to the ground himself before they quit. Having Duncan won't hurt, either.

Actually, that U.S. team last summer was the poster child for what's wrong with NBA basketball. ESPN gets a bad rap on this. You've heard it. It's the so called SportsCenter syndrome: Too much hair for the men. No, but that is an issue. It's that kids only see dunks and 3-pointers on the famed highlight show. So that's what they practice and they don't learn the fundamental skills like the international players, who, as we know, don't have TV and still throw the ball up for a center jump after made baskets.

This is nonsense, of course. Though there are still statues of Larry Costello in the Balkans.

It is a one-world basketball community now, but the NBA community is stuck on this notion of athleticism in its so-called quest for the perfect athlete, not necessarily the perfect basketball player.

Duncan may be the perfect player, or the Big Fundamental as Shaq calls him.

Tim Duncan
... then pound the ball inside to the NBA's MVP, Tim Duncan.
He's why this NBA team will dominate the qualifying tournament. He and Brown.

Because Brown knows how you win basketball games. Unfortunately, in the NBA, he's never had that transcendent player, which is why he's tied in total NBA championships with Roy Rubin. But Brown is the Big Fundamental of coaching. You throw it to the big guy. If he doesn't have a good shot, you work it around until the big guy does, attack the basket and get fouled -- or you skip a 20-footer for a good 10-footer. The NBA game these days is played a little differently. Someone pulls up on the break and passes back for a 25-footer.

No wonder Brown changes jobs so often. He's still looking for that NBA team that actually knows how to play basketball.

Last year's colossal collapse was an aberration.

Had Jason Kidd and Ray Allen played as scheduled before injuries prevented them from spending a month with George Karl, the U.S. probably would have won. They were missing a dead-on perimeter threat, like Allen, and an on-the-ball defender, like Kidd. However, the Americans were woefully weak inside on offense and that might have doomed them anyway.

One can already see from last Sunday's exhibition game against Puerto Rico that Kidd and Allen Iverson have initiated Brown's plan: Pressure the ball, upset the shooters on the outside, disrupt the opponent's offense, then work the ball around and push it inside to Duncan. This is not going to be easy for a U.S. team put together in just a short time. My personal feeling is the big Eastern blackout last week was Brown's doing. Always trying to get the edge, Brown has been complaining about the lack of time together for the team to bond. I figure Brown pulled a plug somewhere so the guys wouldn't be able to go out in New York and would have to hang around the hotel together. Now, this is just a theory, mind you.

But there's no question international talent has not caught up to NBA talent. These players assembled for the qualifying tournament -- heck, even the guys who forever can declare "We're No. 6! In Indianapolis" should be winning these games by 30 to 50 points. They're not the Dream Team of 1992, but, remember, that team was more Hall of Fame than the best team ever. Larry Bird was about to retire and could barely stand straight. Magic Johnson had retired for the first time with HIV and was getting treatments. Christian Laettner was on the team. So forget best-ever 12-man unit, for sure.

Actually, the talent on this team would probably compete with that team without a problem. In Patrick Ewing and David Robinson, that team didn't have the interior threat of Duncan. And with Kidd, Iverson and Tracy McGrady on the perimeter, they'd certainly match Chris Mullin, Clyde Drexler and John Stockton. Yes, there was Michael Jordan. And it would be impossible to counter him. But you could at least begin a debate.

Which makes it a long way from an average winning margin of more than 40 points to trying to beat Spain for fifth and needing to qualifying in the Americas tournament.

TEAM USA ROSTER
Player Ht. Pos.
Ray Allen 6-5 SG
Mike Bibby 6-1 PG
Elton Brand
6-8 PF
Vince Carter 6-6 G/F
Nick Collison 6-9 PF
Tim Duncan 7-0 F/C
Allen Iverson 6-0 SG
Richard Jefferson 6-7 SF
Jason Kidd 6-4 PG
Kenyon Martin 6-9 PF
Tracy McGrady 6-8 SG
Jermaine O'Neal 6-11 F/C
Americas Olympic Qualifying schedule

There's much expected from an American NBA team. And there should be.

We've heard all this stuff about how the world has caught up and there's all these international players in the NBA and it's something of a level playing field. Nonsense! The U.S. talent is far superior to anything that any country can provide. True, most of those teams are together longer and the players have a national chauvinism that means something.

It should to U.S. players, as it did in 1992. It clearly didn't mean anything to the group assembled in Indianapolis last summer.

I get the feeling it does mean something to this team. Which is not to say that's enough, along with the talent. The talent should be dominant. But as Brown has counseled from Day 1 -- and that's why players often tire of Brown, who tells them what they don't want to hear: the truth -- it's a matter of playing, in effect, like they do. Not like we do. Pound the ball inside, find an open shot after moving the defense, attack and draw fouls.

Sadly, what has occurred, why the world has caught up with the U.S. in basketball, is not because there is talent anywhere that comes close to comparing to the NBA. It's that they know the game better than we do. Our game.

The NBA wanted a more competitive basketball world, and, as it goes, you better watch out for what you ask for. It's been more competitive. That's the fault of the NBA. It's too late to develop more classic, back-to-the-basket centers and a style of play that eschews the 360 dunk for the backdoor cut. But it's not too late for this team to play that way and show that the expectations can meet the reality, that the U.S. can dominate the sport as it always has.

Act 1 is Wednesday in San Juan.

Sam Smith, who covers the NBA for the Chicago Tribune, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.





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