Team USA

The more I think and blog about my beloved Washington Wizards, the more dubious distinctions I find in the franchise's history. I don't necessarily do this deliberately and it's certainly not some sort of self-flagellation type of punishment (although I would not blame you if you interpreted things that way). It just sort of happens, kind of like the way the Stay Puft marshmallow man popped into Dr. Ray Stanz' head in Ghostbusters. It's not my fault; it just happens.

Last night the United States men's basketball team defeated Argentina in this year's Olympic Games to move into the tournament's semi-finals. That got me thinking: how has the United States' basketball team been represented across the NBA and how come there never seem to be any Washington Wizards on the USA roster every four years in the Olympics? I mean as far as I can remember I don't remember any Wizards (or Bullets) suiting up for America. I probably should have let that thought die there.

Up to and including the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, NBA basketball players were prohibited from participating in Olympic completion under the pretense that it would give the United States an even bigger advantage in a sport they already dominated internationally every four years. But the 1992 Games in Barcelona would change all that and the USA responded by putting forward the Dream Team, the greatest collection of basketball players every assembled on a single team, to mop the floor with the rest of the world. And they did. And since then, Team USA has been represented solely by NBA players.

So who are all these players? Well, they are typically All-Star players on good NBA teams. Of the 83 slots filled by NBA players in the last eight Olympics, six of those spots have been filled by players from the Miami Heat (Hardaway, Mourning, Wade twice, Odom and James), New York Knicks (Ewing, Houston, Marbury(!), Chandler and Anthony twice) and Utah Jazz (Malone twice, Stockton twice, Boozer and Williams). The remaining 71? Various players from 25 of the other 27 franchises in the NBA. Yes, there have been two franchises that have never been represented on Team USA. The Atlanta Hawks and, of course, you knew this was coming, the Washington Wizards.

I know what you are thinking. That can't be, right? I mean there are some really bad teams out there or teams that just don't have the superstar caliber players to make it to a US Olympic roster, right? How about the Nets? Well, the Nets sent Richard Jefferson in 2004 when they were in Jersey and Deron Williams eight years later from Brooklyn. How about the Grizzlies? Well, almost not. Shareef Abdur-Rahim represented the US in Sydney in 2000 when he played for the VANCOUVER Grizzlies. But surely not the Bobcats / Hornets. Well actually, yes, again. Emeka Okafor in 2004.

So despite all those players representing our country, no Wizard has ever made it? How about Michael Jordan, Mitch Richmond and Christian Laettner? Sure, all three of those guys made it to the Games and they all played for the Wizards. But Jordan was the 1992 version of his airness, not the MJ that played in the District from 2001-2003. Mitch Richmond was close, just a couple of years from being broken down entirely and shipped to Washington for an almost in his prime Chris Webber, who appeared in four All-Star games for the Kings after being run out of town by the Bullets. And Laettner was just a college kid on the Dream Team, the reason that 83 of the 84 roster spots were filled by NBA players; Laettner got number 84. And we've already talked about Emeka Okafor.

Now, there have been some good players that have been on either a Bullets or Wizards roster since the Dream Team was formed. Webber and teammate Juwan Howard each made an appearance in an All-Star game but never sniffed Olympic competition. Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler each made two All-Star teams in the mid aughts but were offered as much as Webber and Howard. True, Gilbert Arenas and John Wall (the team's only three time All-Stars in recent memory) and Bradley Beal got some consideration (Beal actually got an invite to be on the team this year) but ultimately didn't participate. Nothing.

In my three plus years writing this blog, I've written about the Wizards winning nothing since I started buying season tickets: no division titles, no conference titles and no NBA titles. Now you can add no USA Olympians to that list. Thank God for Atlanta here. I really thought the Wiz would end up as the lone team without a Team USA representative. When's the season start again? I gotta have something to take my mind off of this stuff.

The Dog Days Of An Olympic Summer



We are definitely into the dog days of summer. The average high temperature over the past two weeks in the Washington DC area has been 94 degrees. Brutal! And while the temperature and humidity at the end of July and early to mid-August is going up,  NBA action for the serious fan slows down and stays that way for a couple of months. Summer League is done, trades are few and far between and free agency is pretty much over. Most teams at this point have managed to get 12 or 13 players under contract and are willing to wait for guys without teams to take veteran minimum deals or just wait until training camp to fill out the roster. This year, all this likely means Dwight Howard is stuck in Orlando until mid-January at the earliest and we don't have to deal with paying attention to that nonsense for the next few months.

Despite things slowing down, there have been some diversions to keep me focused on the Wizards at least part time. The NBA schedule was released on July 26 so I got to do a little schedule planning for the winter. The Wizards managed to sign A.J. Price, a point guard who spent the last three years playing for the Indiana Pacers and they managed to lose Roger Mason Jr. and James Singleton by just not being willing to pony up the kind of dough it takes to keep those two. Too bad. I think both Roger and James did a great job of bringing veteran leadership and production to the team after the trading deadline last year.

The biggest distraction to cure my lack-of-NBA malaise the last few weeks, though, has been the Olympic Games. And fortunately and unusually, the Wizards actually have some guys playing so I got to at least see some of our players in action. I spent my time rooting for Nenê playing for Brazil, Kevin Seraphin playing for France and of course my home country of Great Britain. No, I was not rooting for the US. I really don't like some of the guys on that team and I resent the fact that that team is basically like the playground bully. Having said that, if there were some Wizards playing for the team, I'd be watching every minute wanting them to win. Hypocritical, I know. Let it go!

In case you have been living in a cave, the Olympics were held in London this year, which is five hours ahead of Washington DC. That means basketball games which start at 9 a.m. in London start at 4 a.m. here so my alarm clock has been set awfully early some days: two 4 a.m. wakeups (including one on a Saturday) and one 6 a.m. wakeup on a Sunday. So much for sleeping in. The afternoon and evening weekday games in London fall in the middle of my work day so I had to sneak out of work on a Tuesday afternoon to watch Brazil play Great Britain followed by France edging Argentina and bailed early the following Wednesday for the quarterfinals. It's all worth it. When is missing work to watch basketball NOT worth it? Never, is the answer.

Saturday morning, 4:15 a.m. France vs. Tunisia.

True to form, my teams did not win much (do they ever??). The team I wanted to win most, Great Britain, lost their first three games to admittedly stronger competition although they only fell to silver medal favorite Spain by a single point. Then in their fourth game, it appeared for a brief moment that they might actually have a shot at getting out of group play. They extended a 10 point halftime lead over Australia to 15 a few minutes into the third quarter but then the bottom fell out and they ended up losing by 31. That's a 46 point swing in less than 20 minutes. Wow! They did manage to salvage their Olympics by beating China in the final game of group play but then were reduced to spectators after that.

Brazil and France actually only lost one game each and finished second in their groups during pool play but couldn't manage to win an elimination game, falling to Argentina and Spain respectively. Nenê came off the bench for Brazil, averaging 6.6 points and 8.0 rebounds per game in an average of 22 minutes per game. If those numbers can translate over about 35 minutes a game for the Wizards next year, I'll be pleased. I thought Nenê played good defense and showed smart passing, something the Wizards were sorely lacking at the center position prior to last year's trading deadline. He did miss one game due to a listed injury, although the real reason may have been that the game didn't matter. I know the injury concern with this guy nags at most real Wizards fans.

Kevin Seraphin represented the Wizards well. He managed only 15 minutes per contest and averaged 6.0 points and 3.3 rebounds in his time on the court. I think these numbers are true to his NBA production from last season and watching his game still demonstrates the need for improvement in boxing out and rebounding. Kevin had a critical seqence in the game vs. Argentina which sealed the upset victory for France, poking the ball away from Luis Scola at the defensive end of the court and then running the floor for a layup at the other end. He also was on the receiving end of an alley oop against Lithuania. I'd love to see some alley oops to Kevin starting this November. I think it's also worth noting that Kevin led France in field goal percentage, shooting 54.8%. I have to wonder if France made a mistake keeping him out of the last 16 minutes of their elimination game against Spain when they failed to connect on 13 consecutive field goals in the decisive stretch. Guess we'll never know.

Anyway, I know the Olympics are not yet over and there are four more hoops games to watch. But for the Wizards faithful, our guys are done. I assume the US will take the gold. I'll keep a casual eye on things to make sure.