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U.S. failed to respect game, opponents Posted: Friday September 06, 2002 1:09 PM
INDIANAPOLIS -- In the end, at these world championships, the U.S. national team lost both ways a basketball team can lose. The Americans' meeting with Argentina was a classic international game, with the floor spread, lots of motion and backcutting, and action flowing up and down the court, with the U.S. blindly trying to keep up. The hosts could plausibly claim to have been on terra incognita during their 87-80 loss. But Thursday night Yugoslavia beat a team of a dozen NBA players 81-78 in what had all the earmarks of an NBA playoff game: grind-it-out offense, battles near the basket, each possession squeezed to its final seconds. Again, the Americans' effort fell short. The Yugoslavs, far from rebounding terrors in the tournament, ruled the boards, 40-29. A former national coach of a western European country, watching from the stands, counted only two set plays from the U.S. all game long. In the end, two guys who have never played a minute of NBA ball executed skills that have been all too rare in the American game of late. One is sinking free throws: Yugoslavia's Marko Jaric knocked down four in a row over the final 23 seconds, while the U.S. couldn't get one to drop for the entire fourth quarter. The other skill in short supply Stateside is face-the-basket play from big men: 6-foot-9 Milan Gurovic dropped three 3-pointers over the final 6 1/2 minutes to help erase a 10-point U.S. lead. To those who suggest the results would have been different if only the U.S. had sent a better team, I say, perhaps. But would Jason Kidd and Ray Allen have defended Argentina's beautifully choreographed inbounds plays and pick-and-rolls any better? And we know from a few months ago that Vlade Divac, Peja Stojakovic & Co. are capable of playing Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant & Co. to a virtual standoff. U.S. basketball stands at a crossroads. If its future is to be dictated by suits, either in Colorado Springs or Manhattan's Olympic Tower, things won't necessarily turn around. The Americans' best hope is for the response to come from the bottom up. I'm reminded of tennis, when John McEnroe got sick of watching the U.S. lose the Davis Cup, his sport's most prestigious international event. He enlisted Pete Sampras to play, which in turn led Andre Agassi to sign on, and Jim Courier, and ... you know the rest. That kind of dynamic -- similar to the brush-fire peer pressure that brought together the original Dream Team for the 1992 Olympics -- is the best way the U.S. can assemble a posse that might restore its honor in Athens in 2004. But that alone won't change things. The world of basketball is radically different this morning. Gone forever are the days when a U.S. team, by dint of the letters across the front of its jerseys, will by birthright field the most talent, and prevail simply by showing up and playing hard enough. In both their losses, the Americans needed not only to play harder, but to play better -- craftier, with more unity and purpose and poise. At least one U.S. player, Toronto Raptors forward Antonio Davis, seemed to recognize that. "Our coaches of today have to go out and teach guys the game of basketball the right way," he said after the U.S. had been eliminated from medal contention. "We learned you have to respect the game and have to respect other players." Many Hoop Life readers responded to my earlier dispatch deploring the American fans' apathy for this event, most with explanations for the lousy attendance. (To refresh: Not once in 12 sessions has Conseco Fieldhouse been even half full, and with only two exceptions no more than 8,600 people have rattled around any session in the RCA Dome.) There's merit in virtually all of those explanations, particularly the ones invoking the high ticket prices. But none is an exonerating excuse. The crash of the peso has left their country in ruins, yet Argentines have made it here and shown up, faithfully, for every game. The least a few Yanks could have done was converge on downtown Indy last night, when the tournament had reached its one-and-done phase and the U.S. team, fresh from its loss to Argentina, sorely needed a home-court advantage. Instead, virtually all the red, white and blue came with Cyrillic lettering, and all the eagles were Serbian. "I was surprised that people in America didn't show more support," Stojakovic said afterward. So was I. Surprised and disappointed. But at least one of the explanations I've heard -- the U.S. team doesn't play the brand of ball that appeals in these precincts -- evaporated with last night's results. Argentina and Yugoslavia deserve the support not just of Hoosiers, but of anyone who wants to see ball movement and backcuts, and simple team plays like Shooter's "picket fence" of Hollywood fame. Germany and New Zealand, the other semifinalists, overachievers both, deserve support, too. There isn't a high school player or coach in Indiana -- or any neighboring state, for that matter -- who wouldn't learn loads from any of these four teams. Prices on the cheap seats have been slashed to $20 for the semis and finals, Saturday and Sunday. Here's a last chance to turn out -- lest American fans join the American team in historical ignominy. Sports Illustrated senior writer Alexander Wolff is author of Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure, available online and in bookstores everywhere. He can be reached at http://www.biggamesmallworld.com.
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