Hello everyone! There is something that keeps me busy these days while being at home. And I guess that it will go on, and on, and on for at least more than one year until I finish it. I am converting my whole basketball tapes collection from VHS to DVD. I am discarding some games, those with poor image quality or those that are totally meaningless and unimportant, but you get to see a lot of good stuff here and there. Just today I was watching a Greece - USA game from the 1990 World Championships. USA still went with NCAA players like Alonzo Mourning, Kenny Anderson, Mark Randall or Billy Owens. Meanwhile, Greece was without Nick Galis but had an splendid, amazing Panagiotis Giannakis, who played one of the best games of his career. The game down to the wire and Kostas Patavoukas took a 15-meter (from beyond midcourt), desperation shot at the buzzer that danced around the rim and incredibly enough, went out and took the game to overtime. The desperation faces on some people in the stands were great!
USA went on to win that game but lost against the united Yugoslavia (one of the best teams ever in world basketball with Divac, Kukoc, Radja, Drazen Petrovic and surprinsingly enough, Zeljko Obradovic) in the semis, ending up with bronze. Greece beat Spain with an outstanding Fanis Christodoulou and went to the top 8. Due to that loss, Spain had to play for places 9th to 16th and finished 10th. Things have changed for Spain in the World Champs, I tell you that.
It shows how basketball has changed these days. I was considering which were the key moments in basketball that provided that change. Well, here we go with a Top 5 list:
1) The 1972 Olympic Final. The Soviet Union beat the US 51-50 in controversial fashion. Don't have time to explain it properly, but the final seconds had to be played three times until Aleksandar Belov beat the buzzer once he picked up a length-of-the-court pass and put it in, possibly after travelling. The US team never accepted the silver medal, that are still in a safebox in Munich. It was the first time that the US did not win a gold medal in basketball.
2) The 1988 Olympic semifinal, once again USA - Soviet Union. Coach George Thompson brought a very defensive team to the event, that still had soon-to-be solid NBA players like David Robinson, Danny Manning, Mitch Richmond, Dan Majerle or Hersey Hawkins, who did not play that game. The USSR coach and a total basketball legend, Aleksandar Gomelsky, took advantage of that and opted to get Rimans Kurtinaitis involved. He fired in 5 triples and got enough help from Aleksandar Volkov, Arvydas Sabonis - who killed Robinson despite being out of shape - and Sarunas Marciulionis to win the game. It was th Munich revenge - and it had consequences...
3) The Dream Team - all games. For the 1992 Olympics, USA Basketball opted to bring NBA players for the first time and put the best team ever in basketball, the only Dream Team in basketball history. Magic, Jordan, Larry Legend, Stockton, Malone, Barkley, Mullin, Drexler, Robinson, Ewing, Pippen and erm, Christian Laettner. They dominated everyone - even when Yugoslavia was no more and they never came with the team that had dominated European basketball for three years - and gave a lesson to the world. Despite being stars, the collective was even better. Everyone took note and the Dream Team, in a way, helped world basketball to become more competitive. The NBA-based US team would go on to win the 1994 World Champs and the 1996 and 2000 Olympics - even when Lithuania was a shot away from beating them in the 2000 semis.
4) The 2002 World Championships: the US team was flooded with solid NBA players - maybe not the best ones, but enough to dominate. Argentina gave a lesson on how to play team basketball with Ginobili, Scola, Nocioni or Sanchez and simply dominated the US team. Moreover, Yugoslavia - with an outstanding Milan Gurovic - beat them in the quarterfinals. The US finished sixth because Navarro and Gasol helped Spain to beat the States and be 5th overall. It was the beginning of a revolution that started with the Dream Team. World basketball would never be the same.
5) The 2004 Olympics: Italy beat a very competitive US team in a pre-Olympic friendly game, then Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico!) downed the States in the group stage. Nobody celebrated better than Carlos Arroyo, who just stood still holding his jersey pointing at the words Puerto Rico. Sarunas Jasikevicius would hit 3 three-pointers down the stretch to make Lithuania beat the US, and then in the semifinals, Argentina (once again) downed the States with a huge Ginobili. Three Olympic losses in two weeks, when the US had lost two games in more than 50 years.
What now? Teams like Argentina, Greece or Spain are at the top of their game. If the US doesn't bring their best players, they will be in trouble. But what a fantastic basketball tournamente we will all follow in Beijing 2008!!!!
Still, right now it's the Euroleague Top 16 and the ULEB Cup semifinals, enough excitement for the present time.
Enjoy it all!
Javi
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