Time For USA Basketball to Face Facts, We’re Second Rate

The Men’s USA Basketball program is far from the elite force it once was in international competition. Just don’t tell that to anyone in America

I can still remember it. That game. I was only 13 at the time, so naturally I was crushed, pissed, but crushed more than angry. "That game" took place in the 2002 FIBA World Basketball Championships, held in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. That game was on US soil. We, the almighty US Men’s Basketball Team (the basketball team formerly known as the "Dream Team"), lost that game. And that game, whether the US or the world realized it at the time, changed the complexion of USA basketball, and in turn changed the face of international basketball across the globe.

If the game in question is one you don’t remember, allow me to jog your memory. Mine is still fresh. It was the sixth contest for the US in the 2002 Worlds, following five straight wins against horribly overmatched teams. We were playing Argentina. The game didn’t feel special at the time, at least not from my spot in front of the TV on my couch. The usual TV crews were spouting on about how Argentina would be the toughest challenge in the tournament. At the time, when the US had yet to lose in international competition since the inception of the Dream Team in 1992, a word like "challenge" registers with an American sports fan about as well as the word "class" registers with Lindsay Lohan. A challenge? So, that means we only win by ten, instead of twenty, right? Four quarters, about fifty Argentina backdoor cuts, and at least twenty "what the fuck are you doing?!"s later, USA basketball was faced with a mind numbing result — we lost.

After the 87-80 loss to Argentina the US went on to lose two out of its last three games and stumble to a stomach churning sixth place finish. I was heated, like Jermaine O’Neal turning that Gatorade cooler into a punching bag heated. More to my displeasure, I seemed like the only one. Don’t get me wrong people were disappointed, players were upset. But it felt more like players were more offended then angry, like someone had pulled a Dogma like loophole by having the nerve to beat the almighty US National Team, and existence as we know it would cease to be.

If all you remember about USA Basketball failures is the most recent summer Olympics in Athens, the 2002 Worlds weren’t anything like that. There was no effort at reclaiming anything. There was only arrogance and worse yet, indifference, like taking time to constantly win gold medals was too much of a bother. There was no Allen Iverson giving props to the non-US game, there was only Paul Pierce barely even acknowledging questions about Argentina in the post game conference and seeming agitated that some questions had to be translated from Spanish to English.

In that moment, in that game, the USA Men’s Basketball program forked over whatever right we once had to call ourselves the best basketball nation in the world, only because we were too lazy and too arrogant to defend what was ours. Now here we are, four years later, wishing we could still call ourselves the best, but the truth is, we’re not.

The truth is, in international competition men’s USA Basketball is second rate. Argentina, Lithuania, Serbia & Montenegro, Spain — these are the top tier teams in international basketball. Whether you or any other American would care to admit it, the US is trying to overcome them, not the other way around.

You can’t be the favorite if you consistently prove unable to win against the competition you’re supposedly favored against. The US hasn’t placed first in a major international competition since the 2000 Olympics, and even then we seemed sloppy and complacent. Six years and two international embarassments later, and USA Basketball is still trying to fool its fans and the rest of the world into believing it holds some kind of significant advantage over the competition, either mentally or on the actual basketball court, both of which disappeared some time ago.

USA Basketball and its fans have become the New York Yankees of international basketball. No matter how many times we lose to teams with less superstars and better team fundamentals, we still believe we’re somehow the favorites. Time to wake up and face facts — the dream is over. Argentina has a better basketball team then we do, period. Serbia-Montenegro, Lithuania, and Spain are at least on our level, if not higher. And even Puerto Rico, formerly the United States’s dorky little brother, is catching up on us.

The times of the US dominating the international basketball scene are long gone, and they aren’t coming back, ever. We aren’t the best anymore, and we aren’t even in a position to reclaim that title fully at this point. The United States needs to win the gold medal in Japan this summer, more than it has ever needed to win before. Not to reclaim our position atop international basketball, but just to maintain respectability.