The stakes in Paris
Who has the most to lose and gain from what shakes out at the Olympics?
Good morning. Let’s basketball.
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte; Georges Seurat; 1884-86
A big part of the status quo for Team USA men’s basketball is that, at least since 1992, Olympic gold medals are the minimum standard. The team fell short once, in 2004. This was seen as an unacceptable disaster, leading to big talk about changing how the team was managed and what role NBA stars could essentially claim for ourselves based on their own whims. This new paradigm lasted exactly one cycle until NBA stars again began skipping the off-year FIBA World Cup and making themselves available for the Olympics. The idea of a large roster with competition to make the final version died after 2016 (three gold medals into redemption).
There is very little difference between Team USA men’s basketball’s current model — recruit as many American NBA stars as possible in the winter and spring before the World Cup or the Olympics, and hope for the best when more stars sign up for the Olympics than the World Cup — and what existed in 2000 and 2004, when it all came crashing down.
Something that often gets lost about the 2004 team that finished with a disastrous bronze medal is that there were some legendary players at the peak of their powers on the team. A high number of good players rejected the invitation on account of concerns over the War on Terror and subsequent American invasion of Iraq, and broader concerns about Athens’ fitness as a host. In Sacramento, I distinctly remember the hubbub when Mike Bibby — never an NBA All-Star, for what it’s worth — declined. But Tim Duncan and Allen Iverson were on that team: one of the best players ever plus one of the best individual offensive sparkplugs of the modern era. We remember that the three precocious Team Toast members LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony were there following their rookie NBA seasons. But there was also Amar’e Stoudemire and Shawn Marion, and Richard Jefferson, and Carlos Boozer, and a very young Emeka Okafor, and Lamar Odom, and … uh, Stephon Marbury. What an ecletic and young roster, led by probably the worst fit as a head coach: the brilliant, cantankerous and absolutely immutable Larry Brown.
You probably know what happened next:
Team USA lost by 19 in the first game of the tournament to a Puerto Rico squad led by a heavenly Carlos Arroyo. The mainlanders were 3/24 from three.
Sarunas Jasikevicius went nuts in another group play game for Lithuania in rallying to beat Team USA, guaranteeing the Americans a bad seed in the knockouts. Starbury and AI went a combined 6/26 from the floor. LeBron famously played just six minutes.
Team USA beat Spain in the quarters behind a Starbury explosion and despite Pau Gasol seriously outplaying Duncan.
Team USA very famously lost to Manu Ginobili and Argentina in the semifinals. (LeBron played three minutes, more than only Amar’e and Okafor.)
The Americans got revenge over Lithuania in the bronze medal game.
The NBA commissioner’s office and the (pre-blog, pre-social media) American sports media complex erupted in rage over the shortcoming, leading to Jerry Colangelo (and let’s be honest, David Stern) taking over USA Basketball’s senior men’s program, hiring Mike Krzyzewski and writing a new narrative.
Despite increasingly close calls in the Olympics — including an opening game loss to France in Tokyo three summers ago, avenged by a 5-point margin in the gold medal game — Team USA is a perfect 4/4 in golds since ‘04. If that changes, another implosion will come.
Who will it be aimed at? Here’s my take on who is most at risk of serious critique, of course dependent on how it actually goes down.
Steve Kerr. You can already see it in Team USA’s 2023 World Cup performance and the perfect-but-not warm-up schedule before these Games. Many Warriors fans have been critical of Kerr’s coaching for a few years now, and that’s expanding to a wider audience. Larry Brown deserved a big share of blame pie in ‘04. Coaches always get a finger pointed their way, sometimes for good reason. (Hello, Gregg Berhalter.) We’ll see about Kerr.
LeBron. I always thought haters calling James “LeBronze” because of the ‘04 catastrophe was unfair because Larry Brown wouldn’t freaking play LeBron. You can’t blame LeBron, Amar’e or Okafor for that performance, because they were basically given no opportunity to turn the team around. But LeBron is the unequivocal leader of this squad, cemented by the fact that he’s going to join Coco Gauff in carrying the American flags in the Parade of Nations today. Maybe — again, depending how it goes — he’ll get some grace on account of being 39-and-a-half years old. We’ll see.
Joel Embiid. It feels as though the mood is a little sour on Embiid’s decision to pick the United States over Cameroon and France in the first place. Embiid had a slow start to the Olympic cycle but was much better in the last couple of games. He still isn’t performing to the level of Anthony Davis, which is worth monitoring. If Embiid has a tough game and the United States loses? The knives will be out for him. He might have more high-profile critics circling in the NBA discourse than any other true-blue star. (Not counting your Trae Youngs or Domantas Sabonii.)
Grant Hill and Adam Silver. It’s hard to tell whether Silver is as involved in USA Basketball decision-making as Stern was. I suspect not given what was going on this winter and spring for the league office (the media deal). So maybe The Commish gets a pass. Hill took heat for basically removing the long roster with competition for the final spots from the process. Jaylen Brown and Kyrie Irving both fired shots at USA Basketball over the roster process, and it’s already led to one player replacement (Derrick White in for Kawhi Leonard) and could have led to two more if Embiid’s playoff injury was worse (I really can’t believe he signed up for summer duty) or Durant wasn’t on a recovery path. The whole concept of roster consistency and commiting to a full Olympic cycle is so completely out the window now: only five of the 12 players were on the 2021 Olympic team, and only two — including one who doesn’t play (Tyrese Haliburton) — were on the 2023 World Cup team. We are fully back in 2004 mode on roster development. Hill will take heat for that if they don’t claim gold.
AAU and the American basketball player development system. Eventually, Team USA will not be favored over the field for Olympic gold in men’s basketball because “the world” is catching up in producing high-level hoopers. The top four players in the world are already all internationals. Three of them will be in this tournament trying to knock off Team USA (and each other). Team USA has never before had to face the Best Player Alive in the Olympics. (Greece didn’t make the 2021 field when Giannis Antetokounmpo was arguably the BPA.) But the Americans will face the Best Player Alive on Sunday when they take on Nikola Jokic and Serbia. And then in the knockouts it’s possible they’ll face the second best player alive in Giannis, and the fourth best player alive in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. This is all to say that parity is inevitable on a long enough scale of time. But when that transition hits, it’s going to be very messy, and a usual punching bag — how American basketball stars are developed and treated compared to those from Europe and South America — will definitely be front and center. I hope those critics (who are largely correct about the problems in our system) remember that most of the Canadian players came up in that system too, which defangs the case should the maple leaf all-stars take out Team USA.
Nike. Do Kyrie and JB have the tweets in drafts already, or will it come off the top if the team loses? And how does Anthony Edwards feel about the conspiracy theory?
What do you think? If Team USA falls short of gold, who’s at risk of drawing the most blame from the discourse?
Department of Corrections
I wrote on Wednesday that MJ and Chuck went from facing each other in the NBA Finals to teaming up in the Olympics. This is wrong: the Suns-Bulls Finals was ‘93, which is after ‘92. We regret the error.
Schedule
Here’s the men’s basketball schedule at the Olympics for this weekend. All times Eastern.
In the United States, you can get access to every game on streaming through Peacock. Select games (including Team USA) will be available on NBC. It’s $8 for a month. You get the rest of the Olympics, too.
SATURDAY
Australia vs. Spain, 5 AM
Germany vs. Japan, 7:30 AM
France vs. Brazil, 11:15 AM
Greece vs. Canada, 3 PM
SUNDAY
South Sudan vs. Puerto Rico, 5 AM
Serbia vs. United States, 11:15 AM
No games on Monday.
Links
For the high-level NBA executives who aren’t in Paris getting ready for the Opening Ceremonies, waking up to a Mark Fainaru-Wada story splashed on ESPN.com with the headline “How the NBA Got Into Business With an African Dictator” is probably not a great start to their Friday. The dictator in question is Rwanda’s Paul Kagame. Given that Fainaru-Wada refers to Masai Ujiri as a “dear friend” of Kagame is probably causing some consternation in the Raptors organization as well.
Zach Lowe on the red flags around the Nuggets’ last two offseasons.
Smart extension for Andrew Nembhard in Indiana. Huge extension for Evan Mobley in Cleveland.
The NBA officially rejected Warner Bros. Discovery’s bid to match Amazon’s media rights package. WBD seems to have threatened legal action. My presumption is that a settlement is in the offing. I will say that if the settlement doesn’t involve a last-minute refund of WBD’s 2024-25 fees and an early pivot to the new partners — which seems a little impossible, but maybe Amazon can mobilize quickly? — this is going to be a very awkward season on TNT. It was already awkward during the playoffs with Charles Barkley telling every camera how much this stinks.
After that news, the NBA officially announced its new deals. Since we already knew most of this thanks to the gumshoe reporters giving us a live tick-tock over the past half-year, what’s most interesting is what the NBA focused on in its press release. And to me that’s the fact that they are highlighting that 75 games per year will be on broadcast T.V. instead of the current 15. That means more ABC and more NBC, which is great, because basically anyone in the nation can get those broadcasts for free with a digital antenna. I’m really curious to how the broadcast schedule is structured. ABC in recent years has pivoted away from Sundays (especially during the NFL season) in favor of Saturday evenings, and has done some simulcast work on Wednesdays (with Tuesdays and Wednesdays the safest from NFL incursions).
This Anthony Crupi story on how the NBA and sports plays into the new media paradigm is really good, and not just because of an epic lede.
Everyone wants to hire Chuck. I don’t take his threats to retire that seriously because that dude loves talking on camera or mic or in front of random people. But we’ll see if the magic translates to other sets. I just don’t think ESPN is set up to let Chuck be Chuck.
Cool Baxter Holmes story on Junior Bridgeman’s business empire.
Kevin Durant remains the greatest poster of all time, and I don’t think it’s close.
Alright, that’s this week. Really looking forward to watching the Opening Ceremonies with my kids, and we’ll have some reaction from the first set of men’s basketball games in Monday’s edition. Be excellent to each other.
the canadian players all grew up in very robust player development programs in canada that are fundamentally modelled after FIBA. it's part of a Long-term Athlete Development model where players are training to train at that age (rather than trying to pre-empt their development by pushing them to train to compete)
Of course players never point out who coached them from ages 6-10 or 11 - but the hidden/unsung heroes of all these canadian players are the coaches who were trained and steeped in coach development programs that were fundamental-movement and skills based. only now in 2024 are we seeing the creeping spectre of U10 AAU style hoops here in canada (the province of ontario, really). these clubs are nothing but factories, just pumping these kids full of strategies and dribble drills and american tournaments before they are even ready to use their weak hand, jump correctly or identfy an advantage situation in a half court set up
Same point different player: in 1992 MJ and Drexler had just played each other in the Finals. That was the Jordan-shrugging year.