THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 1, 1995 TAG: 9508010230
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Once again the United States is fielding a ``dream team'' of star professional basketball players to represent us in the 1996 Olympics.
For shame!
Games between the team from the United States, where basketball began in 1891 when James Naismith hung two half-bushel baskets in a YMCA gym, and teams from countries known mainly for fancy postage stamps are nightmares.
When are we going to wake up and end the one-sided spectacles?
They were so revolting that many turned away as from a dogfight between a German shepherd and a chihuahua, though no decent shepherd would notice so small a foe.
How can you root with enthusiasm for a team in which every player, save one, averaged more than 19 points a game last season in the National Basketball Association?
It is time to renew the plea, sounded four years ago, that we dismantle the dream team of professional All-Stars and replace it with a national team of collegiate players as last represented us in 1988.
(That team had, among others, David Robinson, a college phenomenon and one of the half-dozen best in the NBA now with the San Antonio Spurs.)
In the contests in 1992, our team looked as if our players were conducting a clinic for a pickup team on a junior high school playground.
At times the foes were well nigh abject in their admiration of their American idols. It was pathetic.
Our team didn't play them; it played around with them.
It wasn't up to a show put on by the Harlem Globetrotters.
Had the gulf between our team and its foes not been so immeasurable as to make the outcome foregone, I'd have pulled for the other teams all the way. Why, our team bested Angola's by 86 points! That wasn't a game, it was a pillage.
The dream team defeated the Cuban entry 136-57. Calling it ``almost the perfect basketball machine,'' Cuban Coach Miguel Calderon Gomez observed: ``As we say in Cuba, ``You cannot cover the sun with your finger.''
It would have taken a team from another planet to cope with that dream team.
In 1992, Michael Jordan was one who took it easy with the opposition; but others, notably Charles Barkley, went all out, to the plaudits of some sportswriters.
At one point, during a seizure of hubris, Barkley exclaimed: ``We can't make the autoworkers make better cars. We can't make better clothes, but we can do this. . .''
Make utter fools of ourselves.
In other years a rare loss with college players lent some suspense to the games; but fans complained of other countries fielding veteran professional players. Impatient for overkill, they demanded the United States abandon its amateur standing.
So now we have proved our team is far and away the best. Let's return the game to the college players and to competition that more nearly reflects the spirit of sportsmanship with the Olympics. by CNB