TNT Sports
U.S.A. no dream team this time
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Published 29/08/2002 at 15:42 GMT+1
The heartland of American basketball is all set to play host to the 2002 World Basketball Championships, starting on Thursday. The home of the Hoosiers will be the home for the world's top 16 basketball countries for 11 days and 62 games, with the gold medal game taking place on September 8.
Eurosport
Image credit: TNT Sports
The heartland of American basketball is all set to play host to the 2002 World Basketball Championships, starting on Thursday. The home of the Hoosiers will be the home for the world's top 16 basketball countries for 11 days and 62 games, with the gold medal game taking place on September 8.
An American victory is not a foregone conclusion for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being that Team USA is no "Dream Team" this time. NBA star players like Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Vince Carter and Jason Kidd, just to
mention five, are all passing on the event for a variety of reasons.
There are still a lot of NBA star players on Team USA, so the
Americans look to be more than good enough to win the gold
medal. The American squad is a remarkable 53-0 in games when the
squad uses NBA players on its roster.
The rest of the teams have their fair share of NBA playersas well - more than 25 are expected to take part in the 10-day event.
A determining factor for the rest of the field may be
incentive - the rest of the world takes this event much more
seriously than the U.S. apparently does.
It was only Team USA and Canada that had trouble attracting
its premier NBA players to take part, for instance. And four
years ago, in 1998 in Athens, Yugoslavia beat Russia in the gold
medal game before 20,000 rabid fans in an incredibly intense and
passionate final.
Intensity and passion may be a problem for the American
players and especially the hometown fans. Despite the fact that
Indiana is unquestionably a basketball hotbed, even the games
involving the U.S. team are expected to have trouble selling out.
So, could Team USA suffer the humiliation of a loss on its
own home turf? Probably not, but not definitely not, as was the
case with the Dream Teams of the last several Olympics.
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