Colangelo Revamping Level Of Commitment For USA Basketball

Suns Chair & CEO Jerry Colangelo, who was named USA Basketball Senior Men’s National Team Managing Dir in April, hopes by the end of the year “to have reached what would be an unprecedented agreement with 25 NBA players” to “commit to playing international basketball for the next three years” without being paid, according to Amy Shipley of the WASHINGTON POST. Colangelo: “This whole concept of a Dream Team, that’s over and done with. The theme going forward is more about respecting the world basketball community, and it’s also about redemption. We have a lot to come back from.” Shipley notes Colangelo in June held a “brainstorming session” with more than two dozen former national team players and coaches including Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Chris Mullin, Jerry West, Dean Smith, John Thompson, Chuck Daly and Lenny Wilkens. The group “agreed the solution was not asking less of the NBA’s best Olympic prospects, or sweetening the sales pitch for the 2008 Games in Beijing, but, rather, demanding much, much more.” Colangelo noted players who have said they should be compensated for playing in the Olympics do not “fit the prototype, if you know what I mean” (WASHINGTON POST, 7/27).