U.S. men's team announced, with high hopes of regaining gold

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 Monday -- one that 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.

The team was selected without a tryout. It will have a minicamp this week in Las Vegas and reconvene 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. will field a team that 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.

Bryant just won his first MVP and led the Los Angeles Lakers to the NBA Finals. James averaged 30.0 points -- just enough to beat Bryant for the scoring title.

Those two, along with Anthony, Kidd and Dwight Howard, started for a team that went unbeaten in the Olympic qualifying tournament last year.

Phoenix forward Amare Stoudemire withdrew from Olympic consideration, apparently concerned about pushing his body too hard after knee surgery in 2005 and 2006. So did Detroit's Chauncey Billups, who would have had a tough time making the team, given the depth in the backcourt.

Wade cemented his spot after U.S. Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo watched him work out in Chicago recently. Wade has had chronic soreness in his left knee since undergoing surgery in 2007, and his season ended in March.

Wade started working out in Chicago in May, and James and Paul joined him to help sharpen his game. Colangelo paid a visit and left convinced the 6-foot-4 guard was healthy.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

I was excited in 1992 when the U.S. put its best NBA players (and a few collegians) on the Olympic team. But for the past few Olympics, I can't get too excited about whether they win or lose. The US team has looked silly at how poor they are fundamentally in basketball versus the rest of the world.

I agree. 1992 was special as it put Magic, Bird, Jordan and Barkley on the world stage for the first time. I don't think the stars have taken it seriously in recent Olympics, but certainly some of the European and South American countries havemade large strides.

I think we would be better off sending Doc Rivers and the Celtics to China. There's something to be said for playing together for a year.

The US was also hurt by the different rules played internationally. It was the team's fault for not learning the nuances of the international game - they fully expected talent to win out. It seems like they put a team together this year that should win internationally - a sharpshooter like Redd will be big to beat the zones. Hopefully, with LeBron taking more of a leadership role (vs. in 2004 when he was just a rookie), he can lead this team.

It's certainly an impressive looking squad on paper.

Don't forget that LeBron was asking Larry Brown to play (LeBron had finished his 2nd NBA season by the 2004 Olympics), but Brown refused, insisting to play veterans. LeBron and Kobe alone should be enough to win it easily, but not if they and rest of the team treat it like the NBA All-Star game (i.e. all offense and no defense).

Going back to Klydon's point of sending the Celts as a team, I said the same thing in 2004: the Pistons were won their title by being one of the ultimate team champions of the past 15 years in the NBA and could have probably won instead of the team we fielded.

The Spurs would probably do well in the Olympics as well. Of course that would mean Parker and Manu would have to not play for their countries.

In the late 90's and early '90s, there used to be a competition where the NBA would send one of its teams to play a few games in a single-elimination tournament against international teams. The NBA team won every time.

McDonald's Championships

Talking about sending the Celtics. I noticed in the finals that they were all US players whilst the Lakers had players from all over the world.

Which team is the odd one out in basketball these days?
(As regards to having foreign players)

I don't know what you mean about odd on out, but the San Antonio Spurs are known to draft and use international players heavily.