You can be forgiven for not getting up at 2:30 on Sunday morning to watch the Olympic gold medal basketball game. It’s an unseemly hour no matter which side of it is devoted to beauty sleep. But, if you missed it, you missed one of the best events of the Beijing Games, and one of the most important events for professional basketball in decades.
First, a little history: Four years ago the U.S. team won the bronze medal, losing to Greece and Argentina, and looking like a bunch of guys who wanted to be anywhere but Athens. This after winning the gold medal in Sydney, and looking like a bunch of guys who wanted to be anywhere but the Olympics. It was a rock-bottom low, not just for U.S. Olympic basketball, but for basketball in general. Sprewell’s choking; the Detroit-Indiana brawl; Allen Iverson’s posse; professional basketball had seemingly become the home for overpaid thugs and miscreants.
David Stern turned things around a little – dress codes, minimum age rules, and cracking down on conduct better suited for the MMA rather than a real professional sports league, but perception lingered behind the revamped reality of the NBA.
No more. The basketball players on the U.S. “Redeem Team” in Beijing were not just the greatest team ever assembled; they were a model of decorum and misty-eyed patriotism. They separated themselves as the most extraordinary group to compete for one simple reason: they’re all rich, spoiled athletes, and, to a man, they did whatever it took to make their country proud.
Every member of the 2008 team marched into the Olympic stadium (the “Bird’s Nest”) with the rest of the U.S. athletes. They took pictures, posed with fans, and signed autographs without complaint. They went to other events, including the swim races won by Michael Phelps and the women’s beach volleyball final won by Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor. In interviews they talked about teamwork, bonding, pride, and how important it was for them to be ambassadors. They were, to sum it up, what Olympians should be.
On the court, they did what no NBA team has done in more than a decade: they played strong, pressing, in-your-face defense, swarming the ball on every possession and exhausting opposing guards.
LeBron James was the team leader. A member of the 2004 bronze medal team, he wanted this gold more anyone after being labeled “LeBronze James” in Athens. He was also a big part of the U.S.’s game plan. International basketball is slow and physical: a lot of guards walking the ball down the court while big men push and shove underneath. In case you haven’t noticed, LeBron is a big, strong man. Nobody pushes him around. He dominated in the paint and opened up the outside game for the fast-paced, push-it-up-the-court guards.
LeBron also became the on-court general, shouting instruction and encouragement like Michael Jordan conducting the Bulls in their heyday. Even during timeouts, Coach Mike Krzyzewski had the good sense to let LeBron do most of the talking. As a result, this team was far from five all-stars playing one-on-one pickup ball: they were a selfless unit working toward a common goal. A perfect illustration of that point is one stat: Dwayne Wade led the team in scoring for the tournament – with 16 points a game, anemic numbers by NBA standards, and just what the doctor ordered for this team.
Then there was Kobe Bryant, a man whose fortunes could not have turned more dramatically. The guy who is an admitted adulterer, accused rapist, and tumultuous agitator for his owners and coaches in L.A., became the model American during the games. He smiled and engaged throngs of squealing fans who treated him like a Beatle; he gave interviews for Italian and Spanish television in Italian and Spanish – “My teammates were looking at me like, ‘Dude, how many languages do you speak?’” he said – and he smacked down Chris Collinsworth when the former receiver sporting big hair and polished teeth inquired, “Isn’t the notion of playing for your country old fashioned and sort of corny?”
“Not for me,” Bryant said. “I love my country. I couldn’t be prouder to be representing the United States. For me, that’s huge.”
Just as huge was Bryant’s play, especially in the final game where a tenacious Spanish team kept it close until the midpoint of the fourth quarter. That’s when Bryant and his fellow guard Wade simply said, “We are not losing this game.” To say the two former NBA MVPs took over would disrespect the efforts of the other three guys on the court. But in the closing minutes, Wade made every critical assist and Bryant hit every important shot. The game turned into a double-digit rout because of their efforts.
Afterward Team USA (again, to a man) shook hands with the officials, went to the scorers table and thanked the clock operators and sideline refs, and hugged their Spanish counterparts. In the medal ceremony, they put their hands on their hearts and sang the National Anthem with their eyes fixed intently on the rising flag.
And basketball was resurrected in America.
When it was all over Wade told an on-court NBC reporter, “This is so special. For the last two years we’ve played as a team, because everyone out here knows that the three letters on the front of the jersey, U.S.A., mean more than the names on the back.”
OK, he stole that line from the movie “Miracle” about the 1980 hockey team, but Wade can be forgiven a little plagiarism. Just as Kobe and the rest of the Redeem Team can be forgiven their previous transgressions. Saving a game for your country erases a lot of sins.