Just Joshin’ Ya

Now that everyone in the News-Times readerland has an idea of who I am and what I’m about, it’s time to talk sports. The biggest thing going on in the sports world currently is the Beiijing Summer Olympics. While most everyone is focused on Michael Phelps and his amazing run of 8 gold medals (and rightfully so), the biggest thing grabbing my attention is the United States men’s basketball team. 
To be fair, I’m a little biased. As an avid Chicago Bulls fan, it only makes sense that I’d also be a pretty big follower of all things associated with the National Basketball Association. Since the Olympic Committee allowed players from the NBA to participate in the summer games in 1992, I’ve been glued to each and every game the red, white and blue take part in.
The “Dream Team”, as we called that initial 1992 team and then unfairly dubbed every U.S. men’s team thereafter, were a sensation. They set the world abuzz and apparently after dining at York’s legendary Chances ‘R restaurant recently, I noticed that the legendary collection of basketball royalty even reached into the consciousness of this fair city (an illustration of Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Patrick Ewing as toddlers in their U.S. basketball gear greet restaurant guests as they head off to use the restrooms).
The crew from the NBA was dominant year-in and year-out through 2000, never losing a game nor seeing a real contest as they stockpiled a 24-0 record in summer Olympic play up to that point. But the rest of the world caught up, as is the case when players from other countries study the United States like a religion, when they themselves started signing NBA contracts and when they played together as national teams for a number of years.  Once the contests started getting closer between the USA and other countries, the love affair between the “Dream Team” and the rest of the country began turning sour.
It all boiled over to a near-hatred level in 2004, when that year’s version of the “Dream Team”, led by coach Larry Brown and stars such as Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan, lost 3 times in 8 games and finished with the bronze medal.  The bronze showing, something most countries would hold parades for, was seen as a tremendous failure in the States. Most players were pilloried for making millions of dollars playing a game, not focusing on the fundamentals of the sport and other reasons that are almost too silly to print (I vividly recall reading writers throughout the country that tried to compare a player having tattoos and cornrows as a reason to why the United States lost. Some ink underneath someone’s skin and a hairstyle have absolutely nothing to do with winning and losing).
In the ruins of the 2004 ‘disaster’, Chicagoans Jerry Coangelo (original founder of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns) and Mike Kryzewkski (the head coach of the NCAA Duke Blue Devils) were charged with rebuilding the entire USA basketball program.
Both men came up with a simple, yet terrific idea: make players agree to a four year commitment to the team. Basketball is a team sport, which everyone knows and understands. If you lump together 12-15 players, form basically an All-Star team of talent, have them practice for a couple of weeks prior to competing internationally, make them learn entirely different rules than what the NBA allows and expect them to blow out international teams that have played with each other for 5-10 years and are now made up of NBA stars in their own right, it’s truthfully a wonder we were able to be so dominant for as long as we were.
The simple commitment theory has allowed the United States to once again be dominant in the Olympics this year. Watch LeBron James attack the rim with reckless abandon, or pinpoint a perfectly-timed pass (he leads all Olympians in assists as of presstime). Study Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul’s borderline-felonious defense as they pickpocket poor unsuspecting players from near and far. Gaze at Dwight Howard’s polished low post moves as he plows through the opposition with a combination of grace and brute strength (keep this in mind:  he is just barely old enough to buy a beer as a freshly-minted 21 year-old). And stare in awe at the freshly-shorn Dwyane Wade selflessly coming off the bench as the sixth man to provide a nail-in-the-coffin spark at the end of every quarter, despite being an NBA superstar and former Finals MVP. 
The entire team has truly been a sight to behold as they currently stand 5-0 in Olympic play. They’ve demolished Yao Ming’s Chinese team by 31 points, Angola by 21 points, Greece by 23 points, Pau Gasol’s Spanish squad by 37 points and Dirk Nowitzki and Germany by a whopping 49 points.
So, as all of you “Phelps Phans” out there bask in the glow of his record-setting performance, take a peek at what USA men’s basketball is up to. Only three games remain between them and officially becoming the “Redeem Team”, gold medals hanging triumphantly around their necks and the weight of a disappointed country off their shoulders. 
email:  josh.vanpelt@yorknewstimes.com