By ANDREW SELIGMAN, AP
June 24, 2008
CHICAGO - MVP Kobe Bryant will be heading to his first Olympics, and he'll have LeBron James and Dwyane Wade with him.
They will lead a U.S. Olympic basketball team that was announced yesterday and hopes to capture the gold medal in Beijing in August after a third-place showing in Athens four years ago. They'll have plenty of help.
Carmelo Anthony and Jason Kidd were among the 12 players placed on the squad. They were joined by Tayshaun Prince, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Michael Redd and Deron Williams.
"It was a very difficult selection process," USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo said during a news conference. "When you have as many outstanding players as we have in this country - to select a group of 12 is obviously going to leave out a number of outstanding people."
The team was selected without a tryout. It will have a minicamp this week in Las Vegas and meet there July 20-25 to train and play an exhibition against Canada before heading overseas. The Americans open Olympic play against China on Aug. 10.
Although the Americans captured the gold at the Sydney Games in 2000, they no longer dominate international play as they once did. The talent gap has narrowed, and many top NBA players have chosen to not play for the national team in recent years.
Now, the U.S. team appears loaded. Then again, the Americans went 5-3 in Athens and lost for the first time since NBA players started competing in 1992 even though they had James, Anthony, Wade and Tim Duncan. That group got routed by Puerto Rico before losing to Lithuania and Argentina, but this one is confident it will take the gold.
"It's really the world's game. We think we're the best at playing that game," said coach Mike Krzyzewski, warning that "unless we show the respect to the rest of the world that it is the world's game" there will be no gold medal.
Wade and Anthony said they didn't know what to expect when they went to Athens.
"I've always seen greatness in the Olympics, but that was never one of my dreams," Wade said. "I never really expected to be on the Olympic team, especially in my first year. I didn't have a clue what I was getting into. ... Now, we respect the game so much. We respect the team basketball that they play internationally so much."
