U.S. men's basketball routs China, 101-70, in Olympic opener

After days of drooling over speculative, or imaginary, $50-million-a-year offers, the U.S. men's basketball team finally started Olympic competition Sunday night.

Fortunately for the U.S., all 12 were still here. That was too many for host China, which, with all the billions it spent on infrastructure and sports venues, should have thrown in another $100 million to hire away one or two key Americans.

In the game that 1 billion or so people had waited for all their lives, the Chinese stayed with the U.S. for the first 15 minutes but then the lights went out in a 101-70 U.S. romp.

Actually, with the Chinese losing their four previous meetings with the U.S. in the Olympics by 48, 51, 63 and 47 points, this one was a barnburner.

Of course, if the U.S. had shot well or just badly instead of missing 15 of its first 16 three-point shots, this one might have been like the others.

Dwyane Wade led the Americans with 19 points and LeBron James had 18. Kobe Bryant finished with 13 points for the U.S.

Given where the Chinese program came from, they're coming fast. When former Laker Coach Del Harris, who coached China in the 2004 Athens Olympics, arrived, he found them practicing for six hours, doing military-style calisthenics and pacing themselves through games, rather than playing hard and coming out when they were tired.

Sunday night, they started two NBA players, Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian, who went No. 1 and No. 6 in the draft, respectively, plus newly signed Laker second-round pick Sun Yue.

The start of the game was all that China could have dreamed.

Yao hit a three-pointer on China's first possession. Within six more possessions, the Chinese were three for three from the arc and leading, 11-7.

The U.S. came back to lead, 20-16, after one quarter, pushed their advantage to 28-21 early in the second, then saw the Chinese come back to tie the score, 29-29.

At that point, with Kobe Bryant struggling, the best Laker on the floor was Sun, a Toni Kukoc-style 6-foot-8 forward who played point guard, held up under Bryant's relentless defensive pressure, knocked down his first two three-pointers and scored all eight of his points.

The U.S. didn't go ahead to stay until Chris Bosh's dunk with 5:12 left in the second quarter, but after that, it turned into a red, white and blue track meet with dunks.

With this U.S. team looking like U.S. teams in days of yore, the question is: Who here is going to challenge them?

With the U.S. and Spain in Group B, Group A co-favorites Argentina and Lithuania met Sunday night, and the Argentines, gold medalists in 2004, lost, 79-75.

The Argentines wiped out a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter, only to see Denver's Linas Kleiza beat them with a three-pointer in the closing seconds.

"In this format, we don't consider this loss that important," said Argentina's Manu Ginobili, who led all scorers with 19 points, "but emotionally it's important. . . . We played OK, but we've got to play a great game or it will be over soon."

mark.heisler@latimes.com