ATHENS | 2004 11 DAYS
So far, most of what we know about the 2004 USA men's basketball team is what it isn't.
It's not the Dream Team. USA Basketball thankfully retired that moniker two Olympics ago. And as original 1992 Dream Team member Michael Jordan once said: "There's only one Dream Team. The rest are duplicates."
It's not the unbeatable, overwhelming favorite to win the gold medal. Not after the United States' last entry in major international competition limped away with a sixth-place finish in the 2002 world championships.
It's not the best collection of active American NBA players. It can't be when it lacks Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady and Shaquille O'Neal.
But after those players and Ray Allen, Mike Bibby, Elton Brand, Vince Carter, Richard Hamilton, Jason Kidd, Karl Malone, Kenyon Martin, Jermaine O'Neal and Ben Wallace either turned down or withdrew from spots on the team, here's what's left: the closest thing to the days when U.S. collegians ruled the basketball world.
This is their chance to show that the young can get it done. The average age on this team is 23.6. Five players -- Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Emeka Okafor, Amare Stoudemire and Dwyane Wade -- would either be in college or fresh graduates if they had gone to school for four years. And they'd make a pretty good NBA starting lineup.
On top of that, the NBA's most valuable players in 2001 (Allen Iverson) and in 2002 and 2003 (Tim Duncan) are represented.
Rounding out the squad are Carlos Boozer, Richard Jefferson, Stephon Marbury, Shawn Marion and Lamar Odom
"We look at all these kids," Coach Larry Brown told reporters at the team's training camp in Jacksonville, Fla. "With all the guys that couldn't play because of injuries or getting married or having new additions to their family or guys legitimately worrying about their safety, these guys all want to be here, they all want to represent their country and they're all excited to be Olympians, and I think we ought to focus on that."
And the players are focusing on the collective goal.
"All the individual stuff is going out the window," Marion said. "It's a team."
Brown just won an NBA championship by molding the Detroit Pistons into a cohesive unit in his first year coaching there.
Now in a race against time with the U.S. Olympic squad, he hammered home the importance of unity when he benched Iverson, James and Stoudemire for an exhibition game against Puerto Rico Saturday after they arrived late for a team meeting.
