HoopsHype.com NBA Blogs - Mark Heisler

Seems like old times.

This is where I came in, with the U.S. dominant and its Olympic team playing its rear end off.

The first Games I covered were in 1984 in Los Angeles when Bob Knight drove his college players as only he could. With their star power – Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, Sam Perkins – and that level of effort, the world was overmatched. The talk then was that it, along with the 1960 team with Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, were the best there ever were.

The 2008 U.S. team was like the pro version of Knight’s team, with the same effort and even more star power. That was fortunate for the Americans because when they got into that shootout at the end with Spain, they needed every bit of firepower they had.

Even in 1984, things were changing, although no one knew how much.

As good as Knight’s team was, there was someone out there capable of playing with them – the USSR – but it boycotted.

Four years later at Seoul, the last Soviet Olympic team with Arvydas Sabonis, Sarunas Marciulionis and a cast of jump shooters whipped John Thompson’s U.S. squad fair and square. That did it for U.S. college players, who bowed out in favor of the NBA stars who were supposed to put the U.S. back on top forever, starting with the Dream Team’s triumph at Barcelona in 1992.

It turned out to be forever or 10 years, whichever came first.

Boris Stankovic, the far-sighted head of FIBA who made it possible for the professionals to participate, turned out to be even farther-sighted than he knew.

“Now NBA players are dominating,” said Stankovic at Barcelona, “but one day – not in my lifetime but one day – the world will catch up.”

Stankovic is still going strong and if the world hasn’t caught up, it has definitely closed the gap.

It wasn’t long before the Americans couldn’t just show up and accept everyone’s surrender. If they couldn’t shoot, had no chemistry and/or weren’t together long to prepare for the international game, they were in trouble. As U.S. scout Tony Ronzone, the Pistons’ director of basketball operations said in Beijing last week, “And that’s all we sent.”

At the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis, the pros representing the U.S. lost their first game, to Argentina. For good measure, they then lost to Yugoslavia and Spain, too.

Then came the Athenian Nightmare in 2004, when nine members of the team that qualified the preceding summer bailed amid scare stories about terrorism. Larry Brown wound up with a makeshift team with Stephon Marbury at the point, Lamar Odom and Richard Jefferson at forward… And lost three more games.

Then the U.S. got serious, with Jerry Colangelo setting up an ongoing program and Coach Mike Krzyzewski making sure his team had plenty of time to prepare for the 2006 Worlds in Saitama, Japan, where they… lost?

Greece stunned them in the semifinals as point guard Vassilis Spanoulis ran pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll down the stretch and the U.S. broke down completely.

That was how far the world had come. Even if the U.S. players parked their attitudes, put in the time and took it seriously, they weren’t guaranteed anything if all the pieces weren’t there. Indeed, there was one piece of the puzzle missing but it – he – arrived the next summer in the person of Kobe Bryant.

Out the summer before after knee surgery, Bryant came joined the team for the 2007 Tournament of the Americas, determined to make an impact on defense. This was a suprise for anyone who didn’t know Bryant but he had seen the game against Greece – which aired at 3 am on the West Coast – which was all he had to see.

On the very first possession of his Bryant’s first game against Venezuela, he pounced on point guard Greivis Vasquez, a rising freshman at Maryland who had missed a triple-double by one rebound in his first game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Bryant tipped the ball away, dove on the floor after it and when Vasquez got it back, jumped up, stole Vasquez’s next pass and started a fast break the other way.

“That’s the clip Coach K always uses, Kobe diving on the floor,” says Ronzone. “You’re talking about an MVP player in the NBA who just made a statement to USA. basketball… And what that did is it took our defense to another level. What you’re seeing is something that started last summer in Las Vegas, which is amazing.”

Even the Dream Team wasn’t known for its defense but for its firepower and star power.

If the 2008 team resembled Knight’s, it’s no coincidence. Knight was once Krzyzewski’s mentor; Krzyzewski even broke down game film for him at Los Angeles. Kryzewski’s team would be one of the smallest teams the U.S. had sent in decades with no seven-footer and only Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh over 6-9. It was also probably the most athletic they ever sent with Howard and Bosh able to get out on shooters.

This team was more than just good. In a refreshing change, it was nice.

After years of arrogance and macho that turned the world off as fast as the Dream Team turned it on, Colangelo and Krzyzewski set out to show the U.S. could regain its preeminence without looking like an And 1 Mixtape.

The horror show had started in the 1994 Worlds at Toronto where the so-called “Dream Team II” with its Young Guns, put on an Ugly American Clinic. Bristling at comparisons to the Dream Team whose play they couldn’t begin to match, the Young Guns, notably Larry Johnson, Derrick Coleman and Shawn Kemp, showboated, rubbed it in opponents’ faces and talked trash.

That deal where the opposing teams wanted their pictures taken with the Dream Team? That ended at Toronto.

“I don’t know if vile is the right word or disgusting,” said Australia’s Andrew Gaze. “There should be at least some pleasure in playing the game, some dignity.”

Replied Johnson: “I didn’t come here to make friends. I’ve got enough friends.”

All it took was some leadership and all of that went away.

“I really do believe from everything I know from people I respect, the people in the world thought the American teams didn’t respect them,” says Colangelo. “Didn’t respect them as teams, as individuals, arrogant, that kind of thing. And that had to end….

“From those first meetings with players, I said, ‘Look, this is what people think of us. We have to change this. We have to come in with a whole new attitude. We have to show respect for our country, show respect for our team, show respect for our opponents. And anything less than that’s not going to fly.’”

Old foes like Gaze and Lithuania’s Sarunas Jasikevicius who had bristled at their old arrogance, noticed the difference.

“I think they’ve been outstanding, the way they’ve conducted themselves,” said Gaze, doing TV at Beijing. “They may be coming from a fairly low base from some of their predecessors in the way they’ve gone about it….

“I think they’ve really taken on the challenge, not only to resurrect the reputation of what goes on the court but what goes off the court.”

Nevertheless, as great as this U.S. team was, Spain stood up to it in the finals even while giving up 118 points, scoring 107, taking the formidable U.S. defense apart, highlighted the driving dunk Rudy Fernandez threw down in Howard’s mug.

I’m pretty confident Spain would have beaten the 2000 U.S. team that night. (Of course, it would have beaten the 2004 team. Like, who didn’t?) The 1996 team with Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley might have been in trouble.

Unfortunately for the game, which gains immeasurably from real drama in the Olympics – even if it doesn’t go over so well in the U.S. – FIBA is about to change things again.

By 2012 in London, the conical lane will be gone and the three-point line will have been moved back from it’s present 20-6, one foot longer than the college line to 22-2.

Insiders say FIBA is doing it to get one set of rules worldwide, in the sure knowledge the NBA won’t be changing its rules. The international rules evened things out, minimizing the impact of all that U.S. athleticism, enhancing the importance of the international teams’ shooting prowess.

Not only isn’t anything broken, it was really getting interesting, so why are they trying to fix it?

Anyway, there’s no doubt the U.S. is back. For how long remains to be seen.

You don’t normally like to see your roster go belly up in the Finals which, even that far along, suggests a fundamental problem. Take the Lakers. The Celtics just did.

It’s not good to discover you’re not tough enough, especially up front since no one is likely to be inclined to send you one of their tough big men. Nor would the draft be of much use, even if they were in it, which the Lakers almost aren’t, with only one pick at No. 58. However, this is an extraordinary case with the Lakers expecting seven-foot, 275-pound, 20-year-old Andrew Bynum expected back next fall.

Bynum, who missed the second half of the season, had been breaking out in his third season, looking so impressive that Kobe Bryant, who had excoriated Laker management, demanding to be traded, changed his mind about the whole thing.

If this was embarrassing – Bryant also railed at the Lakers for not trading Bynum for Jason Kidd – Kobe is now on board in a big way (“He’s a legitimate, 7-1, long-wing-span, natural shot blocker so add Andrew, it takes us to another level defensively.”)

Hurt on Jan. 13, Bynum was expected back in March but wound up undergoing arthroscopic surgery and missing the rest of the season. With Pau Gasol arriving to take his place – another piece of good luck for the Lakers who wouldn’t have been pursuing the deal with Memphis if Bynum hadn’t been hurt – the Lakers were never sure how good they were.

They certainly weren’t physical and or imposing defensively. On the other hand, their offense was so good – – they were 34-8 with Gasol in the lineup going into the Finals – there didn’t seem to be anyone better, or close.

It was almost as if they were on a lark. They would be better next season but in the meantime, why not try to take advantage of the opportunity at hand?

They wound up running into the Celtics, who looked out on their feet after going seven, seven and six games deeps in the three first rounds, but seemed quite refreshed in the Finals.

Bryant, who had smoke coming out of his ears in the interview room after their Game 6 loss in Boston, was over it by the time he talked to Laker beat writers three days later after his exit interview with head coach Phil Jackson.

“I’m comfortable with what we have,” Bryant said. “Whatever Mitch [Kupchak, Laker GM] decides to do, he decides to do. It’s more of a relaxing summer for me because I know we have an opportunity to win. It’s exciting.”

With Bynum’s rehab now progressing, the Lakers do have one decision to make with Andrew up for an extension at or near the maximum-salary.

Nevertheless, the Lakers can let it play out according to their own comfort level.

They could extend him this summer (unlikely), wait to see how he holds up in training camp and sign him before the opener (possible) or wait until after the season, when he’ll be a restricted free agent and they can match any offers (also possible).

Aside from that, the Lakers just have to make the pieces fit with Bynum at center and Gasol moving to power forward.

That would move Lamar Odom to small forward… if he ever gets there.

At the moment, there’s speculation the 6-10 Odom will be shopped for a more small forward who’s a better outside shooter.

(That means, forget those Shawn Marion rumors. Like Odom, shooting from the outside is the worst thing Marion does.)

(As for those Richard Jefferson rumors, shooting isn’t what RJ does best, either.)

In what could be viewed as a preview of next season, Boston’s Kevin Garnett roamed off Odom in the Finals, just as the Lakers did with Rajon Rondo, giving Lamar any outside shot he wanted.

Odom faded, Garnett helped jam up the high-powered Laker offense inside and that was that.

Jackson wanted a small forward who could shoot and space the floor badly enough to start the inconsistent Vlade Radmanovic while labeling him “my favorite Martian.”

Beyond the question of how Odom will fit in the new configuration, he has one year left on his contract at $14.1 million and wants an extension. Meanwhile, the Lakers have financial issues. These don’t threaten the franchise, which probably grossed $175 million last season, but they’re issues, anyway.

As a result of the Gasol trade, Jerry Buss is looking at an additional $90 million in additional salary and luxury tax over the last three years of Pau’s contract – which was the reason Memphis got so few offers – unless the Lakers get some money off their cap.

With trade-Lamar stories all over the local papers, an irate Kupchak said the team hasn’t even had those discussions yet. However, Odom was originally in the package going to Memphis for Gasol, until Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley took him out, opting to lesser players and more savings.

And the Lakers will be holding those talks soon, with only one problem position, small forward.

Jackson, who wants to get tougher – and has never minded getting loonier – loves Sacramento’s Ron Artest, who just happened to be hanging this postseason, even going to Boston for Game 6.

Artest has tried to get himself traded to either Los Angeles team for years and can opt out of the last year at $7.4 million on his Sacramento contract. However, with the Kings unlikely to do a sign-and-trade unless they get Bryant, Bynum or Gasol, Artest could only get the Lakers’ $5.4 million veteran’s exception.

Of course, with Artest and Jackson, anything’s possible from Ron-Ron in purple and gold to a peaceful summer in Lakerdom.