FROM DREAM TEAM TO SCREAM TEAM … POP GOES THE DYNASTY
It’s one thing to lose in the Olympics for the first time in 17 years, quite another to choke and perform sluggishly while not grasping the historical urgency — a poor reflection on Gregg Popovich
Send for the plane. They can avoid the typhoon that way, along with the possible humiliation of not winning an Olympic medal for the first time in a sport that we originated, innovated, popularized and perfected. As a French TV announcer said of the USA basketball charlatans who performed Sunday like so many Pepe Le Pews, “We are beating the inventors of the game.’’
Three decades after the Dream Team made America proud, the Scream Team is making us vomit.
And you know what’s maddening about it? Our latest collection of NBA players, including future Hall of Famers Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard, don’t seem to care much that they’re shaming one of this nation’s supreme sporting reigns. They prefer to rationalize that the world has narrowed the competitive gap rather than face the harsh, staggering truth: Another Hall of Famer, coach Gregg Popovich, has allowed the Americans — still the most skilled team in Japan despite a hodgepodge roster weakened by superstar decampments, logistical issues and COVID-19 setbacks — to devolve into a flawed, sluggish, chemistry-challenged, choking-dog team that might not reach the quarterfinals.
Typically, after Team USA’s first Summer Games loss since 2004, the ever-smug Popovich continued to demean reporters who won’t accept his company line that America’s expectations should be lowered. Amazing how a man who so easily savaged the former U.S. President, while often mounting a soapbox about political and social issues, can’t accept fault when it’s time to address his professional shortcomings on a global stage.
“I think that’s a little bit of hubris if you think the Americans are just supposed to just roll out the balls and win,” Popovich said after the 83-76 stinker. “There's nothing to be surprised about. When you lose a game, you're not surprised. You're disappointed, but I don't understand the word ‘surprised.’ That sort of disses the French team, so to speak, as if we're supposed to beat them by 30 or something. That's a hell of a team."
That’s a copout. Or, a Pop-out. Yes, more international teams include current and former NBA players, such as France, but that wasn’t why the Americans lost. They looked like they wanted to be anywhere but Tokyo on a night when they were outstrategized, outhustled, outrebounded and didn’t make a basket in the final 4 1/2 minutes. Durant encountered foul trouble and found nothing but abuse on his self-obsessive social media accounts. Lillard, who has forged his legacy in clutch moments, committed two critical late turnovers and was benched at one point. It’s convenient to say LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry and James Harden declined invitations … and that Bradley Beal contracted the coronavirus … and that Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton and Devin Booker arrived hours before tipoff after participating in the NBA Finals … and that the talent pool obviously is depleted when the likes of Keldon Johnson and JaVale McGee are in uniform.
But this is BASKETBALL, OUR GAME. And excuses are intolerable when the core problem was an alarming lack of effort, fight and execution — amid a flurry of turnovers, missed shots and general disunity — as the Americans blew a seven-point lead with 3:30 left. Along with nailing the killer three-pointer when Team USA could not in a haphazard final minute and a half, French star Evan Fournier delivered the defining quote.
“They are better individually,’’ he said of the losers, “but they can be beaten as a team.’’
Which points to a systemic crisis, similar to what USA Basketball dealt with after settling for a bronze medal 17 years ago in Athens. Just as pride in winning a gold medal had to be restored by Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski, who won three consecutive Olympics in dominant form and launched an international winning streak of 76 games, the body language in Asia suggests another transfusion is necessary. When Popovich succeeded Krzyzewski as national coach in 2016, it seemed a natural choice at the time. But in the subsequent years, he has aged to 72, stopped contending for titles with the San Antonio Spurs and grown increasingly ill-tempered about 21st-century life. He isn’t to blame, of course, for a diluted roster. But who ever thought a Popovich team would be outworked by … France? Or underachieve from an apparent lack of interest?
Other than one comment — “We’ve got to work for it just like everybody else. And for those 40 minutes, they played better than we did,’’ he said — Popovich protected a team that deserved to be slayed. This is what he did when the Americans lost to Nigeria and Australia in Las Vegas exhibitions, but as embarrassing as those clunkers were, losing the Tokyo opener is a sin of greater potential consequence. We assume, perhaps mistakenly, that the Americans will beat Iran in their next Group A game Wednesday. But if they lose Saturday to the Czech Republic, they could fall into oblivion.
Hence, The Scream Team — which isn’t the only discouraging U.S. headline from the first weekend. Simone Biles, the biggest reason to watch the Games amid scattered apathy and cratering TV numbers, stumbled and staggered in the qualifying round as another American stronghold — the women’s gymnastics team — stunningly fell to second place heading into Tuesday’s final. If you thought all Russian athletes were barred from Tokyo after a state-masterminded doping scandal, guess who’s still lurking? Vlad Putin, of course, after cutting a deal with the International Olympic Committee to allow “clean” athletes to compete under the name “Russian Olympic Committee,’’ or ROC. Is this corrupt? Yes. But like the basketball team, Biles can’t be making excuses if she wants to walk away from her Olympic swan song as the greatest ever. The other mortal U.S. lock, Katie Ledecky, was anything but in an epic match race against Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, losing for the first time in an Olympic individual event.
All this as a typhoon threatens to disrupt an Olympiad that never should have proceeded last Friday. Is it too late for the IOC to huddle with NBC and send everyone home?
At least another American dynasty, in women’s soccer, still has hope after rebounding from a stunning opening loss with a 6-1 cruise over New Zealand. But even when a U.S. athlete triumphed, there were clouds. Celebrating swimming gold in the men’s 400 meters relay, Chase Kalisz removed his mask on the winners’ podium and hugged silver medalist Jay Litherland, who wasn’t wearing his mask. Down came the wrath of the International Olympic Committee, reminding athletes to obey coronavirus protocol rules. “We urge and ask everyone to obey the rules, whatever stakeholder you are," IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said. “It is not ‘a nice to have.’ It is ‘a must have,’ both for the sports and for everyone involved. It sends a strong message so please follow the playbooks.’’
The Scream Team should wear masks out of ignominy. For context, consider this is the 20th men’s basketball tournament at the Olympics. The Americans have won 15 of the previous 19. They didn’t play in 1980 because the U.S. was among nations boycotting the Moscow Games. They were cheated out of gold by an officiating scam in 1972. They won bronze in Athens and bronze in Seoul in 1988, the last time NBA players weren’t allowed to participate, which led to the 1992 Dream Team that included 11 Hall of Famers. No one is expecting the absurdist U.S. routs of that era because, indeed, the world has made remarkable inroads since then — consider that Giannis Antetokounmpo, the newly anointed NBA king, is from Greece; Luka Doncic, the league’s future heir, is from Slovenia; and Nikola Jokic, its most valuable player, is from Serbia.
Still, to fall so far so quickly — they’re 2-3 this summer, 3-5 in their last eight games — is an indictment of players whose heads are elsewhere and a coach who won’t address their lack of purpose and urgency. Popovich is undermanned inside, where France coach Vincent Collet could play 7-footers Rudy Gobert and Vincent Poirier together. But Team USA, built to outshoot opponents, missed its final nine shots — including three wide-open treys from Durant, Zach LaVine and Holiday, who, somehow, led the team in scoring just off a 6,000-mile flight. Wait, Draymond Green is in the locker room. Might he deliver an ass-kicking?
“We haven’t been together that long, but we’ve been together long enough to have (more) consistency. We have to defend better down the stretch,’’ he said.
Nothing else? “If anything, maybe you lost a little bit of the fear that we've had in people's hearts for years,’’ Green said. “Which you go out and do what you've got to do and you can get that right back.’’
Not strong enough, Dray.
What about Lillard, who has been forceful in demands that the Portland Trail Blazers upgrade their roster? Does he have similar passion about avoiding an all-time Olympic blemish? “I think we have a history of dominance and maybe not always blowing people out, but we have a history of winning. And it's not often that you see Team USA go out there and lose, especially to start,’’ he said. “I think that's why a lot of people will make it seem like the end of the world, but our job as professionals and this team and representing our country at the Olympics, we've got to do what's necessary and we still can accomplish what we came here to accomplish."
His words sounded promising — until he veered into U.S. exceptionalism that no longer exists in basketball. “We were just trying too hard to do the right thing," said Lillard, “instead of just being who we are — the best players in the NBA."
They fail to grasp that their NBA pedigrees and nine-figure contracts no longer matter. The Olympics have become the great hoops equalizer, and the wounded Americans need to locate their hearts before they are run out of Japan. In a sense, the NBA is a victim of its own dubious decisions, stretching the postseason so far into July that it directly spilled into Tokyo. Had commissioner Adam Silver and his broadcast partners opted for a shorter regular season than 72 games — and waited until January to start — maybe James, Curry and others would have played. But Silver wanted the $1 billion in TV money that came with launching in December, and now, his weary league is being overwhelmed by Europhenoms.
First Giannis, next Luka? “Slovenians, we know how to fight, man,” said Doncic, who dropped a mere 48 in a rout of Argentina. “We’re not going to go down easy.” Popovich has suggested Luka and his teammates could win gold. Um, what happened to the Americans winning gold?
“Chemistry is something that we hope forms quickly,’’ Popovich said. “These guys get along very well. They haven’t played together, but they know each other. They’ve sacrificed a lot under the circumstances to do this. The chemistry builds day by day, you can’t force that issue. It just happens organically.’’
From the soil.
In this case, fertilizer.
Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes sports columns for Substack and a Wednesday media column for Barrett Sports Media while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts in production today. He’s an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and radio talk host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects. Compensation for this column is donated to the Chicago Sun-Times Charity Trust.