As the NBA “tries to play God on Olympic basketball, pushing FIBA to
legislate change that’ll render this magnificent spectacle irrelevant,”
NBA Commissioner David Stern “should be forced to confront the
collateral damage of his failing movement,” according to Adrian
Wojnarowski of YAHOO SPORTS. Team Russia coach David Blatt said of
Stern’s recommendation, “I would hope that the countries would be in an
uproar about this. Who is one country to determine for everyone how
int'l basketball should be played, and particularly how the
Olympic Games should be managed? It’s not supposed to be like that. If
it’s a global game, it’s a global game.” Wojnarowski noted Stern has
been “met with an increasing level of resistance about his and the NBA
owners’ desires to turn the Olympics into an Under-23 tournament and
send the league’s superstars to an NBA-FIBA partnered World Cup of
Basketball.” The resistance has gotten so high that it “wouldn’t be
surprising to see Stern use this trip to England to start backpedaling
to spare himself one more indignity in these sad, dark final years on
the job.” Wojnarowski: “Stern should tell the owners that he’s parking
the issue and leaving it to his eventual successor, [NBA Deputy
Commissioner & COO] Adam Silver.” The rest of the world “has low
tolerance for Stern’s bully tactics.” Lithuania G Martynas Pocius said,
“It is the Olympics, and this is important. If they go to a tournament
with just the young playing, it would lose all the beauty of basketball
-- just another youth kind of tournament. The USA would just dominate
it, because there’s just so much more talent (at the) Under-23 level.”
Blatt said, “I find it a little bit contradictory that the NBA had made
such a push to involve their greatest players in the Olympic movement --
and the world basketball movement -- and now when it no longer serves
the interest of the teams, suddenly it’s not a good idea. So what does
that mean? That the last 20 years were wrong?” (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 8/7).
NOT INTERESTED: In Boston, Bob Ryan wrote based on "everything
we have seen and heard at London 2012," the idea of putting an age
restriction in place "is a certified non-starter." Ryan: "From my
vantage point across the pond, I would say events have overtaken the
commissioner. ... That little ‘pop’ you just heard is the sound of the
trial balloon being burst.” There is “enormous interest” in the U.S.
team, and the “international media are enthralled with them.” Ryan: “No
one -- I mean no one -- thinks this 23-and-under thing is a good idea” (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/8).
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: The U.S. men's team plays
a quarterfinal game against Australia Wednesday and remains the
favorite to win the Gold Medal despite teams like Spain, Argentina and
France being stocked with NBA players. CBS’ Mark Phillips noted, "The
NBA first allowed its players to come to the Olympics 20 years ago as a
way of promoting its product and the game. Judging from how others play
that game right now, it may have promoted too well” (“Evening News,” CBS, 8/7).
SI’s Ian Thomsen wrote even as the U.S. men’s team won all of its
preliminary games, there were "signs of vulnerability.” Team Australia
coach Brett Brown said of the prospect of Spain upsetting the U.S., “It
would be no miracle on ice. That is not at all the parallel. These guys
are ripe. They have all the pieces, they have the age, they’ve played
together: It’s the holy grail of international basketball” (SI, 8/13 issue).
