Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony were more witnesses than participants to USA Basketball’s meltdown at the 2004 Olympics. The three young stars, fresh off their rookie NBA seasons, barely left the bench as Coach Larry Brown’s dysfunctional team spiraled downward to a third-place finish that became the low point for their Olympic performances. “The lowlight was not playing,” James said. “Being away from your family for 38 days and not getting a fair opportunity to play.” A sixth-place finish at the 2002 world championships and a bronze medal at Athens had exposed as hubris the idea that a handful of American players could essentially walk out on the court and beat foreign teams that had practiced together for years. Since then, the entire USA Basketball organisation has been rebuilt. Mike Krzyzewski was installed as national coach and then approached 24 players in face-to-face meetings to invite them to be part of the programme. There is no better way to quantify the revamping of USA Basketball than the amount of time that the team has practiced together.The 2004 Olympic team practiced together for 20 days before the Games. The core of the team heading to Beijing will have trained, practiced and played together for 89 days in the past three years. “It was very comical,” Wade said of 2004. “Everyone on that team was a good individual player, but when you put them together, it didn’t mix. It was like a bad mix of food.”And it left a bitter taste in the mouths of the three holdovers. James said he did not know where his bronze medal is. He said he took it to his mother’s house after the Games and had not seen it since. Anthony called the United States’ 2004 performance “embarrassing” and said standing on the platform to accept the bronze medal was a surreal experience. “I didn’t like that feeling,” Anthony said. “I didn’t enjoy that feeling at all.” Three years of preparation have left the Americans so confident that James issued a guarantee that the Americans would win gold. He is not the only one with a gold-or-bust mentality. “We have to go over and prove to the world that we’re just not high-paid showboat athletes,” Wade said. Anthony’s even more confident. “I’ve been waiting four years for this gold medal. It’s going to be special.”
