By Michael Lewis

Sydney, Australia—What should we divine from the United States’ 85-83 near loss to Lithuania in the semi-finals of the 2000 Olympic Tournament?  Is the U.S. squad putting forth its best effort? Has the 82-game NBA schedule finally caught up with the likes of Jason Kidd, Alonzo Mourning, Steve Smith, Gary Payton and Vince Carter? Is the rest of the world drawing closer to the United States in skill and athleticism?  Or have the gods of Olympic competition, in Homeric fashion, decided to send a warning message to America’s most celebrated athletes for their un-sportsmanlike behavior in their 85-70 quarterfinal victory over Russia?  In my opinion, it is this last theory that seems to sum up Team USA’s performance in the semi-finals on Friday.

The Olympic Games has a life force of its own.  Its spiritual rules are not the same as those that govern professional sports in the United States.  When 400m Hurdles runner James Carter, approaching the finish line in his semi-final with an ample lead, turned around to taunt his trailing opponents, the stadium crowd didn’t roar with approval.  No, the Sydney crowd booed. And with them, so too did the gods perched atop of Mount Olympus.  Carter later finished fourth in the finals, while his more sedated teammate, Angelo Taylor took the Gold.

In the Olympics, the humble are often exulted, and pride truly comes before a fall.  The Australian Men’s 400m Freestyle Relay Team strummed their guitars in mockery of US Sprinter Gary Hall, who had arrogantly predicted a United States rout in the swimming competition.  Fate corrected Hall by sucking the wind out of his sails in the last 10 meters of his race, snapping an American unbeaten streak that dated back to the inception of the event.  But fate also corrected the Aussies.  Their arrogance met reprisal in a resurgent American effort.  The United States won many more medals than the Australians by the end of the swimming competition, and proved once again that they are still the truly dominant force to be reckoned with in the pool.

All of this brings us to Dream Team III.  Entering the semi-finals, the United States had not lost in Olympic Competition since they began sending NBA Players in 1992.  In truth, no game has ever really been close.  

Yet in the second half of their Friday night game, Lithuania stormed back from a 12-point halftime deficit to nearly snatch glory from the American’s hands.  Making four three pointers, Lithuania went on a 20-4 run, coming within a hair’s breath of upending the United States.  

A Lithuanian victory over the United States would have rivaled Rulon Gardner’s defeat of Alexandr Karelin as the upset of the games.  At the last second, the gods proved merciful.  Down by two points, Lithuanian guard Sarunas Jasikevicius had an open 3-oint shot at the buzzer and missed. 

One hopes that Team USA learns a lesson from this near-death experience.  In the Olympics, one builds good competitive Kharma by being a good sport.  In their quarterfinal game with Russia, instead of yelling, pointing, throwing elbows, and insults when provoked, Dream Team III should have just gone about the business of beating the Russians thoroughly—as all true Olympic giants (not to mention their Dream Team predecessors) would.  Instead, Gary Payton, Vince Carter and Vin Baker engaged in the kind of rabble unbecoming of members one of the greatest sports teams on earth.  The gods taught them their lesson in the semis.

At its core, the theoretical basis of this article assumes that the U.S. Basketball Team is virtually invincible.  In truth, they should be.  These players make more money, to play more games at a higher level than the players of any other team in the world.  They are athletically superior to their competitors, and they have had access to the best coaches, and the most sophisticated training facilities and equipment.  Nothing short of divine intervention, or disqualification, should stand in the way of their march to Gold.

Thus, it was probably divine intervention that nearly brought them to their knees on Friday night.  Let us hope that, for the sake of American national pride, Team USA decides to conduct itself in true sportsmanlike fashion in the future.  Who knows, maybe the gods won’t be so merciful next time.

9/29/2000
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