As more and more names drop out of consideration for the U.S. Olympic basketball team, I'm left wondering whether or not there will be 12 guys left to play. Seeing as he's basically the only point guard left, I hope Kyrie Irving realizes he's going to play about 35 minutes a game in Rio (provided he doesn't drop out once the Finals end).
It's not just the U.S., either. Andrew Wiggins isn't going to play for Canada in the qualifying tournament in the Philippines, saying that he'd rather spend the summer working out for the Timberwolves' upcoming season (in other words, the team told him to). Wiggins is just sitting out the qualifying tournament and is technically still eligible for the Olympics should Canada make it, but the chances of that are significantly lower without one of their best players.
Sadly, that's become a trend among NBA players. Playing in the Olympics simply isn't a priority. Now, some of the withdrawals are for completely legitimate reasons (if Steph Curry wasn't dealing with injuries, you can guarantee he wouldn't have passed on Rio). But others indicate a simple lack of interest. Which is a downright shame. Because how many people out there would love to be in their shoes and would give anything to represent their country? Let alone in the Olympics?
This isn't the first time this has happened. After the Dream Team, the U.S. sent another strong team of NBA stars to the Atlanta Games 20 years ago. But the Sydney Olympics were in late September just before the start of training camp, so the options were slightly more limited. They still won the gold medal, but it was much tighter than the previous two. In fact, they almost lost a few times, most memorably to Lithuania. Then it all bottomed out in Athens. They had trouble fielding a team and dropped three games, settling for that disappointing bronze (which came on the heels of an embarrassing sixth-place showing at the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis).
After that, USA Basketball changed up the national team process, hiring Mike Krzyzewski as the head coach and asking the players to commit well in advance. It seemed to work, as the 2008 Olympic team dominated in Beijing and reclaimed the gold medal. Then the 2010 World Championships came around and, amazingly, no one who played in Beijing was available. (That didn't stop Kevin Durant from single-handedly winning the gold medal, though.) They were all suddenly available again for the London Olympics, where Durant joined everyone else and the U.S. won again.
The trend that I was beginning to see was that players wanted to participate in the Olympics, but not the World Championships (which is now called the World Cup). That's why it's so disturbing to see these NBA guys are now backing out of the Olympics, too (with the notable exceptions of LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, who are set to become four-time Olympians).
There are people who've suggested that NBA players have no place in the Olympics and would like to see the return of college players. Well, that's not going to happen. Once they opened up international basketball to professionals, they knew they'd never be able to go back. And, for the most part, other countries don't have a problem convincing their native-born NBA stars to play for the national team. Whether that means they have more national pride or the NBA owners have less influence over them, I don't know. But the bottom line remains that this is primarily an American problem.
Contrast that to the NHL. The hockey players want to play in the Olympics so much that they basically forced the owners' hand to go to Sochi. That's why I think we will see NHL players at the 2018 Olympics in Korea. Because they want to. They want to play so bad that the league shuts down for three weeks in the middle of the season so the players can represent their national teams. Same thing in the WNBA. Yet the players in the men's NBA, which is in the middle of its offseason and doesn't have to shut down, are all finding ways to get out of the Olympics.
Are some of the reasons legitimate? Of course. But I worry that this isn't an isolated problem. Will the same thing happen four years from now in Tokyo? (If LA wins its bid for 2024, I guarantee they'll be lining up to play, but if not, we might have the same problem again.) It's already an epidemic when it comes to trying to create a World Cup team.
Why should the tournament matter? Olympics, World Cup, whatever it is. Putting on a national team jersey is an honor that would be the highlight of any athlete's career. And it's not an opportunity that comes around very often. Fortunately, some NBA players understand that. But not nearly enough.
Although, what's a little national pride when you're talking about millions of dollars. Maybe that's the problem. The Olympics simply don't pay enough. If they did, maybe you wouldn't need to make a list of 50 games just to get 12 willing to represent their country. The country that makes it possible for them to make those millions in the first place.
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