“I don’t know anything about Angola, but I know they’re in trouble.”
Charles Barkley, USA Gold Medalist, 1992
I don’t like action movies.
Wait, allow me to rephrase. I don’t like action movies without a good plot. Having grown up seeing everything that action stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger had to offer, I need at least a hint of quality dialogue to go along with my blowing up things for no reason.
Not only do I want to see my superstars detonating all things unholy, but I also need a little intrigue.
Enter Team USA.
It seems like it’s been a while since we’ve talked about the dominance of USA Men’s Basketball, action heroes once happily disposing of everything in their path. Winners of every gold medal since 2008, having stumbled in 2004, all we talk about ad nauseum, or at least since 1992, is how the world has caught up to us talent-wise, which is true. They have. Just ask the South of Sudan.
We can delve even further into the narrowed talent gap with proof. The last six winners of the NBA Most Valuable Player Award have all been born overseas, and that list doesn’t include Luca Doncic who will win one imminently. The last time we saw Team USA play in the Olympics, while they won Gold, they still lost a game, only their sixth loss in Olympic history. The average margins of victory have shrunk considerably over the last three Olympic games, 2024 their lowest since 1976, which is why 1992 happened in the first place, and why this 2024 team is taking things so seriously. They better.
The disparity in talent between the USA and other nations has narrowed significantly. In 1992, the Dream Team played against only six opponents from NBA rosters. International Olympic teams now boast over sixty. The days of beating teams by fifty points are a thing of the past. That’s not to say we still should not win Gold, something we failed to do in 1988 and again in 2004 but this recent batch of pre-Olympic friendlies reminded Team USA it won’t be, or as international NBA great Dikembe Mutombo once joked, a walk in the cake.
Grant Hill knows this. Grant Hill is a nice guy. He comes from quality stock and a storybook background. Outsiders get the impression that Grant Hill has never so much as uttered a curse word nor worn an unpressed shirt. If the South Sudan game is any indication, Hill’s collar is ruffled, and he might have just uttered his first “Fuck!”
The right man for the job, Grant Hill succeeded Jerry Colangelo as managing director of USA basketball. Hill was recently asked what went into putting this team together. Himself a gold medalist with the 1996 team that won every game it played by twenty points or more, Hill agreed the international game is different than it was thirty years ago. He also stressed two factors in compiling the roster: rebounding and defense.
The fruits of his labor showed up loud and proud in team USA’s first Olympic tune-up against Canada. Team USA controlled the boards and held a sharp-shooting Canada team with Shea Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray to 34% shooting. Things would get more difficult in the upcoming games. Australia erased a twenty-point deficit, Serbia kept Team USA honest, Germany held into the fourth quarter and South Sudan almost shook up the world, losing to the Americans by a single point. USA was favored by over forty in that game.
Just when we think the Americans are in the clear with a comfortable lead, they take their foot off the gas pedal.
LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant (who is still nursing a calf injury and has yet to play a minute) are the three faces of this team, like Jordan, Bird and Magic were in 1992. Those teams won games by an average of forty points. Expecting that to happen once again is unreasonable. What is not unreasonable to expect is watching guys play with pride and desperation that they don’t want to be the group who dropped the baton. Steph Curry has never played on an Olympic team. Don’t think for one instance that the goal of LeBron James and company isn’t to win one for him.
A lot of the guys on this team already have one: Tatum, Holiday, Adebayo, Booker. LeBron has two; Durant has three. I can’t imagine them not wanting one more as this will likely be their last time playing abroad.
What we saw all too frequently in the friendlies, however, was too many lapses in judgement and effort: the third quarter against Germany, the second half against Australia, the first three quarters against Southern Sudan. Coach Steve Kerr admitted as such. Team USA clearly has superior talent and depth but has been getting beat far too frequently on effort plays, not boxing out or chasing after loose balls, areas opponents know they can beat this team. Team USA’s occasional perimeter defense against Germany had Bill Raftery calling them “flat-footed.”
Starting this weekend, Team USA will get every opponent’s best effort, on every play, in every game. Every player wants to be the man who toppled the mighty giant. Just ask Carlos Arroyo, who still receives standing ovations every time he enters a gym thanks to the night that he dropped 24 against, and beat, the USA in the 2004 Olympics.
I like intrigue. Within the next few weeks, I’ll be getting it. Personally, I think the Americans take this thing. I don’t think LeBron James and Company will allow them to lose. But they better tighten up their effort. Otherwise, I’ll be giving this movie review two resounding thumbs down.
