Kevin Durant and Team USA aim for gold as globalisation sees the world catch up
The Brooklyn Nets superstar will lead an extremely talented American side in Tokyo, but their rivals are now producing their own superstars and can lean on size to make life difficult for Gregg Popovich’s side
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Your support makes all the difference.The 2004 Olympic Games gave us many things – Michael Phelps’ first medals, Usain Bolt’s Olympic debut and the mystery motorcycle crash that led to home favourites Kostas Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou withdrawing on the eve of the Games under a doping cloud.
For Britain, Kelly Holmes’ wide-eyed delight at her double gold remains one of the iconic images in the country’s Olympic history, while Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins each opened their golden accounts and Matthew Pinsent bowed out with his fourth title.
Those Games in Athens are unique for another reason. It is the only time since NBA players became eligible for Olympic competition in 1992, that the USA’s men’s basketball team have failed to win gold in the men’s basketball.
Not only that, the successors to the Dream Team lost three of their eight matches and had to settle for a bronze medal.
Four years later the ‘Redeem Team’ reclaimed the crown, and the USA are unbeaten in Olympic competition in 17 years.
And yet, the tide is beginning to turn. Warm-up defeats to Nigeria – a team the Americans beat by 83 points at London 2012 – and Australia were the latest warning signs.
Two years ago at the FIBA World Cup, the US were dumped out in the quarter-finals by France before a further defeat to Serbia in the classification matches. They will have the chance to avenge the first of those losses on Sunday in their opening group match.
This has been an ongoing process, not necessarily one of decline, more of globalisation. The rest of the world is catching up.
A look at the current landscape of the NBA tells a story. The current MVP is Serbia’s Nikola Jokic, the runner-up in voting was Joel Embiid of Cameroon. The man who preceded Jokic as MVP, winning the previous two, was Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo who just led the Milwaukee Bucks to their first NBA title in 50 years.
The favourite to win next year’s MVP is Slovenia’s Luka Doncic and the most highly-touted prospect in the world is a 7 ft 2 17-year-old called Victor Wembanyama who came within two minutes of stunning the Americans at the Under-19 World Cup while playing up two years for France.
In the past, the USA have always been able to rely on their superior talent to make up for a lack of cohesion.
The talent gap still exists, notably because all the aforementioned players play for different countries, but it is closing ahead of the Games, broadcast live on Eurosport and Discovery+.
That is a problem for the Americans. Where most national teams grow together over time, be it Argentina’s champions in Athens or reigning World Cup winners Spain, the USA roster changes from tournament to tournament, cherry-picking the best home talent in the NBA.
This year it is not even the best home talent. LeBron James is absent, promoting Space Jam: A New Legacy, as is two-time MVP Steph Curry.
The team still has Kevin Durant, the unquestioned best player in Tokyo when fully fit, with apologies to Doncic, and top to bottom, no team comes close.
However, by virtue of its ever-changing selection, USA basketball inevitably revolves around an isolation style. A look at some of the greatest players of recent times, Michael Jordan, the late Kobe Bryant, James, Durant – what connects them all is the ability to get a bucket one-on-one, it is the foundation of Team USA.
Other countries have more complex game plans, developed over the years.
That is not a knock on the coaching. The man in charge is Gregg Popovich. Tetchy? Sure. Downright rude at times? Also true, but he is a five-time NBA champion and by the end of next season will in all likelihood have more NBA wins as a coach than anyone else in history.
More significantly, Popovich was the man behind the 2014 San Antonio Spurs and ‘The Beautiful Game’. That team placed a premium on ball movement over individual brilliance and did it so successfully that they played a Miami Heat super team, led by James, off the floor on the way to the title.
To compare with another sport, think the Tiki-taka style of Spain’s football teams where Xavi and Andres Iniesta did not need to beat a man to create chances and instead let the ball do the work.
It is perhaps no coincidence that at the time, the Spurs were the most international side in the league, with 2004 Olympic champion Manu Ginobili from Argentina, French duo Tony Parker and Boris Diaw and even Tim Duncan, who played for Team USA but was born and raised in the US Virgin Islands.
The concept of ball movement has long been more prevalent in European basketball where the level of athleticism is not as high.
Popovich was telling in his comments after USA’s losses in 2019. “It’s not just a couple of guys on their own,” describing France. “They hit the open man consistently on every single possession,” he said of Serbia.
Jokic is already regarded as the best passing big man ever, while he also typifies the other issue that regularly affects the USA – the lack of size.
The reason for this is not clear, perhaps the draw of the NFL, but the center position, home of the tallest players in a league of giants, is dominated by overseas players.
At the end of every season, the league’s best 15 players are selected to three all-NBA teams. Over the last four seasons, only one American, the currently injured Anthony Davis, has been selected at center on any of those teams.
That is why on the international stage, the Americans have struggled with Jokic’s Serbia, the Gasol brothers of Spain, and even Nigeria in the recent warm-up match.
The international game is more physical and that can be a problem for players as skilled at drawing fouls as they are shooting the ball. When the free throws dry up, the games get closer.
That is not to say that the USA will not win gold, they remain the overwhelming favourites. For years however, men’s basketball fell into a similar category as table tennis, where Chinese gold was a foregone conclusion, or women’s archery, where South Korea are totally dominant.
We may not get a repeat of Athens, but the world is catching up and international basketball is only becoming more competitive. In the long-term, that is a good thing.
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