The last time the United States won Olympic Gold with College Basketball Players representing the mighty US of A was in 1984. The games were in L.A., Bob Knight was the coach, and the team went 8-0 led by North Carolina product Mike Jordan, Georgetown big man Pat Ewing, and Chris Mullin from St. John’s.
Four years later, in Seoul, a group of College All Stars led by David Robinson, Mitch Richmond, and Thunder Dan Majerle lost to Arvydas Sabonis and the Soviets on their way to earning a bronze medal in those 1988 Games. Good, but not good enough.
The next time around, the United States pulled the plug on that neat little idea of “Amateur Athletes” representing our nation in the Olympics, rolled out the Dream Team, and obliterated everyone.
Over thirty years removed from using college basketball players to fill the US Olympic Roster, Coach K’s squad may need to do just that again if this lockout continues. Possibly.
This from the USA Today:
“One impact of a canceled NBA season, or a compressed season that ends up going longer than usual into the 2012 calendar year, could be on the makeup of the various men’s national basketball teams for the Summer Games in London.
If the NBA is still in lockout mode by the summer, players who normally would be covered by insurance from the league while playing during the Olympics would not be covered.
Without a season, just what condition would NBA stars be in to go through the grind of Olympic training, exhibition games and then the two weeks of the Summer Games?
I have to think that the insurance issue – after a year of being locked out and not getting paid – would be a deal breaker for most of these guys. To be honest, if I was one of these players, that would be a deal-breaker for me at least. The conditioning thing could be something K and his staff could sort out though I’d imagine during tryouts. Assuming there’s at least eight guys out of the approximately fifty who want to play, are in shape, and are able to sufficiently compete for Olympic Gold, I think the conditioning problem could be solved. It’s still an issue nonetheless though, as is a revised NBA schedule that could theoretically extend into July as well.
‘”We’re obviously really concerned,” the Duke Blue Devils’ coach said of keeping an eye on the NBA lockout when he was a guest on ESPN Radio’s Mike and Mike In the Morning show Wednesday. “What if there isn’t a season? What if they expand (the season past June) if they start playing?
“We begin (Olympic) practice the 4th or 5th of July. The gold medal game is Aug. 12. If the NBA has to go into July, what does that do for us? If they don’t have a season, will they play (in the Olympics)?”
And then, there is the prospect of injuries.
“The main thing we’re worried about is just the game. NBA basketball is the highest level in the world. … The thing I would worry about is injuries … the conditioning,” Krzyzewski said. “So you worry about that, just, would anybody get hurt?
“We’re going to wait until spring to announce who the 12 players will be on the team. We have a great pool, because everyone wants to play. … We have the world championship team (from last summer), plus (New York Knicks forward Amar’e Stoudemire and (Los Angeles Clippers forward) Blake Griffin. … It will be a good, tough decision to make.”‘
If any, some, or all of this is the case come next summer, there would be no other option then to load up on the NCAA superstars of today and make a run at things over in London that way. While it might not give USA Basketball the same chance of winning as Blake, Dwayne, LeBron, Carmelo, and CP3 would, I do think a hypothetical squad consisting of Austin Rivers, Jared Sullinger, Harrison Barnes, Andre Drummond, Perry Jones, and Jeremy Lamb could hold their own okay over there under Coach Kryzewski’s tutelage. Might even be pretty fun to watch that way too, but I hope it doesn’t come to that. No offense to Rivers, Sully, or any of those other guys specifically.
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Photo: CoachK.com
