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Thursday, August 24
Latest 'Dream Team' can't lose, can it?
By Chris Sheridan
Associated Press
Nobody really believes the U.S. men's basketball team will win anything less than a gold medal at the Sydney Games. With all that NBA talent, it's a lock, right?
Probably.
But what if some opponent came in with a bigger team, shot 70 percent from an international 3-point line that is considerably shorter than the NBA line, kept the game close and got the benefit of a late whistle or two?
It would be an upset of Olympian proportions, one of the greatest surprises in the history of sports.
Could it happen?
Well, everybody thought the U.S. team was unbeatable -- although not to the same degree -- in 1972 and 1988, when the Americans didn't win gold. The impossible is indeed possible. The United States can lose.
"There's always a chance. That's why they throw up the ball," said U.S. coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who will be bringing what some believe to be a structurally flawed team to Sydney.
This is not a gargantuan U.S. team, nor an especially veteran one. Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant of the NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers won't be there, nor will past Olympian stalwarts Karl Malone and David Robinson. Two of the best American players, Grant Hill and Tim Duncan, have pulled out because of injuries.
The roster features six guards (Jason Kidd, Gary Payton, Steve Smith, Tim Hardaway, Allan Houston, Ray Allen), two small forwards (Vince Carter, Shareef Abdur-Rahim), three power forwards (Vin Baker, Kevin Garnett, Antonio McDyess) and just one center, Alonzo Mourning, who is a good 2½ inches shy of 7-feet.
It's not exactly a teeny-weeny Dream Team, but it's relatively small nonetheless.
"Our strength is going to be quickness and athleticism," Tomjanovich said. "And if you look at our jumping ability, we're not small."
Indeed, the U.S. team is loaded with players who get more and more creative the higher they leap off the ground, including the best dunker in the game right now in Carter.
"Even though we are smaller on the front line than some of the other countries, like Australia, we play above the rim and we run," Mourning said. "So I think we can make up the (size) difference with our quickness.
"I play above the rim, (Antonio) McDyess plays way above the rim, Kevin (Garnett) plays above the rim, and we have two of the best playmakers in the game in Jason and Gary. All we have to do is fill the lanes and run, and they're going to get us the ball," Mourning said.
But to run, a team has to rebound. And although nobody will be sending a front line of three 7-footers at the Americans, there are a couple of teams with the nerve to bang away with the United States while trying to keep things close with putback baskets and 3-pointers.
Australia, for example, will field a veteran team that includes sharpshooters Andrew Gaze and Shane Heal, 7-footers Luc Longley, Paul Rogers and Chris Antsey and 6-foot-9 Mark Bradtke -- all of whom have NBA experience. China has three capable big men in 7-footer Wang Zhi-Zhi, 7-foot-4 Yao Ming and 6-foot-11 Menk Bater.
Some of the best foreign big men, however, will be missing, including Arvydas Sabonis and Zydrunas Ilgauskas of Lithuania and Vlade Divac of Yugoslavia.
Also missing will be some of the bewilderment that opponents brought into their games with the United States in 1992 -- the year the original Dream Team went to Barcelona -- and to a lesser degree in 1996.
The U.S. team is grouped in the easier of the two preliminary round brackets with China, France, Italy, Lithuania and New Zealand. The other bracket includes Angola, Australia, Canada, Russia, Spain and Yugoslavia.
"There's going to be some teams that are going to be somewhat in awe, but there will be other teams that feel they have the firepower and ammunition to make it a game and beat us," Mourning said. "Going into a game against Australia, I'm assuming they'll have some type of swagger and the attitude that they can beat us."
Actually beating the U.S. team, however, would take a near miracle -- something like what happened four years ago in Auburn Hills, Mich., in the U.S. team's first exhibition game before the Atlanta Olympics.
On that Saturday afternoon, the U.S. team found itself down by 17 at halftime to the U.S. Select team, comprised of players 22 and under, and was unable to take a lead until the clock had ticked inside nine minutes. The Olympians went on to win by just six points, 96-90, to avoid what would have been a huge embarrassment.
"They really overlooked us," said Austin Croshere of the Indiana Pacers, who was a member of that 22-and-under team along with Duncan. "I think it showed that if they don't play at their best, they're capable of being beat.
"The biggest opponent for the USA team in the Olympics is overconfidence, believing they're better than they are, because anything can happen in one game," Croshere said.
Since NBA players first went to the Olympics in 1992, the rest of the world has started to narrow the gap.
The original Dream Team won its eight games by an average margin of 43.8 points, scoring an Olympic record 117.3 points a game and never calling a single timeout.
Four years later, the team that went to Atlanta won by an average of 32.3 points and failed to reach 100 points in four of eight games. In last summer's qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico, the Americans' margin of victory shrank to 31.6 points a game.
The U.S. team enters the tournament with records of 101-2 in Olympic play and 60-0 in qualifying, world championship and Olympic games with NBA players on the roster.
"My feeling is we'll be criticized if we don't win by more than 20 points a game," said Mourning, who will leave the team for several days toward the end of the opening round to return to Miami for the birth of his daughter. "I don't think Americans will be satisfied based upon what we've done in the past.
"I'm actually happy that we have our expectations and a standard to meet, because it forces guys to get ready now," Mourning said. "We are going to come home with the gold. We're confident of that."
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