USA Basketball Going For Gold In Bejing
The US Men's Basketball Team Looks to Avenge 2004 Loss
Since the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the United States men’s basketball team has been known as the “Dream Team.”
The nickname was well deserved. Any team that has Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neill, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, David Robinson, Karl Malone, and Patrick Ewing would deserve such a title. The team lived up to the billing, rolling unchallenged through the tournament to win the gold medal.
Coach Chuck Daly said of the team "It was like Elvis and the Beatles put together. Traveling with the Dream Team was like traveling with 12 rock stars. That's all I can compare it to."
The 2008 version of the “Dream Team” will likely have the same kind of reaction when the Summer Olympics begins in Bejing, China, on Aug. 8.
The United States has something to prove this year. The Americans failed to win the gold medal in the 2004 games in Athens, Greece, having been defeated by gold meal winner Argentina in the semifinal. The USA team consisting of Allen Iverson, Lebron James, Tim Duncan and Carmelo Anthony, won the bronze medal by defeating Lithuania.
The Americans were also knocked out of the 2006 world championships by losing to Greece in the semifinals.
The rest of the world seemingly has caught up to the USA in basketball, a sport invented in America by Canadian Dr. James Naismith in Springfield, Mass in 1892,
But any country would be hard pressed to beat this year’s USA team consisting of super stars such as Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Jason Kidd, Tayshaun Prince, Dwight Howard and Devon Williams, They are all NBA All-Star players.
Olympics start using professionals in 1992 games.
The Barcelona games were the first that professionals basketball players were allowed to participate. Prior to that, the United States sent its best college players, which in itself should be a pretty good team.
However, the Communist block countries of the day sent athletes that were professional in all but name only, thereby sending their very best people. Western countries sent amateurs.
Despite this, the United States dominated men’s basketball up until the 1972 games in Munich, West Germany. That group of college players led by Doug Collins lost to the Soviet Union 50-49 in the most controversial gold-medal game in Olympic history.
Collins seemingly won the game when he put the Americans on top by hitting two free throws with three seconds left.
The Soviets tried in-bounding the ball two times only the have the officials put time back on the clock. They succeeded on the third attempt when a cross court pass found Aleksandr Belov under the basket, who made the lay-up for the win.
The Americans protested the game and refused their silver medals. The United States went on to win gold medals at the 1976 games in Montreal and the 1984 games in Los Angeles. (The USA boycotted the 1980 games in Moscow because the USSR invaded Afghanistan).
At the 1988 games in Seoul, the U.S. team suffered another insult, losing to the Soviet Union 82-76. The Americans went on to win the bronze medal.
The Americans eventually got their wish to send their best basketball players to the Olympics. The original “Dream Team” dominated as expected. But European and South American teams are now very capable of giving the USA a fighting chance.
We’ll see how the team and coach Mike Krzyewski of Duke Univerisity will handle it.
