USA basketball shoots for olympic gold

The United States inevitably brings an amazing roster laden with NBA superstars to the Olympic Games, but the 2008 vintage may be the greatest assemblage of basketball talent since the original “Dream Team” in 1992. While the 2008 team may not have quite the embarrassment of riches as a team that featured John Stockton as a backup point guard, they might just have the best balance of talent, scoring, defense and leadership of any subsequent US team. The team has stopped short of guaranteeing a gold medal victory, but has strongly intimated that anything less would be a severe disappointment.

One liability with the “NBA All Star” concept is that it frequently produces teams with plenty of talent and very little on court leadership. That’s not the case this year where LeBron James has assumed the mantle of de facto team leader and no one—not even Kobe Bryant—is questioning that. It seems like yesterday where the big questions surrounding LeBron focused on his maturity entering the NBA straight out of high school, and his ability to develop into a floor leader among much older teammates. Now a “grizzled veteran” at 24, LeBron has become the personification of character off the court and toughness and leadership on it. He’s also arguably the best all around player in the game, and has demonstrated an ability to sublimate his own stats to the overall good of the team.

Another problem plaguing the US Olympic effort of late has been a lack of balance—either not enough scoring, not enough rebounding or not enough defense. This year’s team is almost insanely well balanced starting with Kobe Bryant, whose reputation as an offensive machine often overshadows his world class defensive abilities. Along with Bryant, there’s plenty of multidimensional depth including Utah Jazz nucleus Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams, Toronto’s underrated Chris Bosh and slick playmaker/scorer Chris Paul. And while the physical, defensive stopper role is of somewhat less importance in the international game, the US is well prepared nonetheless with defense and rebounding monster Dwight Howard—who also happens to be a very productive scorer inside the paint.

Up and down the roster, there doesn’t appear to be a significant weakness on the 2008 US team. In addition to the players already named the team includes Carmello Anthony, Jason Kidd, Dwayne Wade, Michael Redd, and defensive wizard Tayshaun Prince. Most importantly, perhaps, the team has shown a much better ability to play as a team than many of their predecessors. There’s no vibe that the Olympics is just an excuse for some international travel; this team is going to Beijing to win. Assuming the good chemistry the team has had to date holds and some nagging injuries to LeBron and others don’t become major problems the gold medal is theirs to lose.

The US basketball team begins play on August 10th against host country China.