Saying Goodbye to America’s Child

Can US Basketball Recover?USA basketball is like a big-rig on a crowded highway. For twelve years, it’s been rolling on, owning the basketball road. Suddenly it’s running out of gas and other countries have climbed out of their Miatas and into oversized SUVs.

In 1992, when Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird laced them up for the U.S., olympic competition watched in awe. They huddled by at practices, asked for autographs and were honored just to dribble a ball on the same court with the U.S. giants.

In early August, as Italy rolled over us in a warm-up, winning by 17 in a game that was never close, it seems clear those days have come to an end.

Fear is no longer impetus enough to hold international competition at bay. The U.S. basketball team is the biggest deer in the forest and all the international teams are hunting for us.

While the road’s paved for a U.S. demise in Athens, the players don’t seem to see the writing on the wall. Allen Iverson described the loss to Italy as a wake-up call. What he didn’t realize is that the alarm’s been going off for years.

International players are no longer foreign to the NBA game, no longer intimidated by U.S. players and they no longer believe the U.S. is infallible.

What’s the future of U.S. basketball? The egotism conceived by past dominance is the same egotism that won’t accept defeat. After a shameful third-place finish at the World Championships last year, America’s best, from KG to Kidd, decided to avoid the Olympics rather than face a possible loss.

Denial and avoidance can’t last forever and sooner rather than later, basketball will have to stop serving as a metaphor for U.S. might.
America has already lost baseball. The number of Latin American and Asian players dominating the game continues to grow and the game’s best young player, Albert Pujols, hails from the Dominican Republic.

We never had hockey and everyone outside of the U.S. plays football with their feet.

All we’ve had is basketball, the competition just interested enough to make the game internationally relevant. Now, with U.S. players either unwilling to play or just playing for their reputations, seemingly motivated by public admiration rather than athletic patriotism, we are on the verge of losing basketball.

As US players flooded the floor after Allen Iverson sank a half-court heave to defeat Germany, it was clear the U.S. mystique, the arrogance and swagger, is gone.  Maybe it’s time to turn our sights to badminton.