USA NT
25/04/2015
William Rosario's Somewhere in the Americas
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The quantifiable gain of playing for USA Basketball

SAN JUAN (William Rosario's Somewhere in the Americas) - The NBA Playoffs are here. This has been one of those years where the league has transitioned to a new crop of stars, with a couple of young guys solidifying their place in the best-basketball-players-in-the-world discussion. In a season where we had 27 games played by Kevin Durant, 35 by Kobe Bryant and a two-week vacation in January by LeBron James, new superstars have crashed the party to become leading men in the league’s picture.

To go over the majority of the NBA experts columns and opinions on the season awards is to find out two sure things: the MVP will go to either Stephen Curry or James Harden and the future is now clear: this will be Anthony Davis' league in a couple of years. There's no disputing those assessments. But they made me flashback to last summer after one of the most horrific sports injuries ever took place in a USA Basketball exhibition games in Las Vegas.

It was a Friday night, 1 August, when, as the Associated Press article put it: "Indiana Pacers All-Star Paul George suffered a gruesome right leg injury late in the U.S. national team's intrasquad scrimmage. George leaped to contest a fast-break layup by James Harden with 9:33 left in the fourth quarter and his leg smashed against the bottom of the backboard stanchion and crumpled. Trainers immediately ran onto the floor and after roughly 10 minutes of stoppage, George was taken out of the arena on a stretcher."

It was horrible. The team's coach, Mike Krzyzewski, stopped the scrimmage out of respect to George and his family, and the emotional impact that the basketball community felt at unison was unprecedented. Pure tragedy, even while George was incredibly positive through it all.

Immediately though, in this 24-hour news cycle where the page is turned at a ridiculously fast pace, the conversation turned away from George's health to the topic of professional basketball players taking part in international competitions.

Detractors to the idea, like Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, pointed to the fact that professional players are too much of an asset for them to be loaned off to an international competition to play for another team (be it the USA or Germany, in the case of his star player, Dirk Nowitzki) in the off-season. In Cuban's words, NBA teams "take on an inordinate amount of financial risk for little, if any, quantifiable gain."

Defenders, like Indiana Pacers (George's team) President and former USA Basketball great Larry Bird, had a different perspective. He said: "We still support USA Basketball and believe in the NBA's goals of exposing our game, our teams and players worldwide. This is an extremely unfortunate injury that occurred on a highly-visible stage, but could also have occurred anytime, anywhere." 

I agree with Bird and use Durant as an example on both fronts. Especially when it comes to playing for Coach K's USA teams.

The Oklahoma City Thunder star forward admittedly withdrew from the FIBA Basketball World Cup after witnessing George's injury in the scrimmage, and then fractured his foot in a practice session before the season even began.

Durant had a breakthrough performance at the 2010 FIBA Basketball World Cup. He averaged 22 points per game in the tournament and had one of the most impressive international performances of all-time in the finals against the host team Turkey, where he scored 28 points and 7 three pointers in the most hostile crowd possible.

It came after Durant's first crazy season in the NBA (2009-10) during which he averaged 30.1 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, won the scoring title, and was named to the All-NBA 1st Team. That was the year he became for real and the World Cup performance made him an international superstar the likes of James and Bryant.

James is another case study. He came into the league with a big hype, the game to back it up and was immediately invited to the infamous 2004 Olympics USA team. Even though they could only claim a bronze medal and he averaged 11 minutes per game, his game grew and in his next NBA season, his averages went from 20.9 to 27.2 points per game, solidifying his superstar status. Then, after his first Olympic gold medal in 2008 he won his first MVP award.

Kobe too. After being called second-wheel (a great one, undeniably) to Shaquille O'Neal in the Los Angeles Lakers' three-peat at the start of the 21st century, Kobe found himself with the opportunity to win a title in 2008 and lost to the Boston Celtics in six games. That summer he played for the USA team at the Beijing Olympics and won the gold medal alongside James. When he came back to the league, he led the Lakers to back-to-back titles (2009 and 2010), while not missing a game in the 2008-09 season.

There's also Derrick Rose, who was awarded the MVP the season after he came back from the 2010 FIBA Basketball World Cup and has had a comeback season after last summer's title run in Spain.  

This last version of the USA team, the one that successfully defended its title at the World Cup, was dubbed a "B, maybe C level team" after Durant's withdrawal and George's injury. Harden called himself the best basketball player in the world before the tournament started and people laughed at him for even mentioning his name and "best" in the same sentence.

And now look where we stand. Curry went from being an exciting point guard to being a superstar, leading his team to a 67-win season and becoming the most talked about player in the world. Harden upped his points per game average from 25 to 27 points per game, while establishing himself as a leading candidate for that once laughable auto-proclamation and one of the most recognizable international player-brand. Both played in more 80+ games this year.

Then there was Davis, who upped his scoring average from 20 to 24 points per game and led his New Orleans Pelicans team to its first-ever playoff appearance; DeMarcus 'Boogie' Cousins, who broke out this year averaging 24 points and 12 rebounds per game while becoming a hot commodity for the upcoming off-season; and the World Cup MVP Kyrie Irving who scored the most points of his NBA career this season (playing alongside LeBron) and is poised to make a run at winning his first championship in the coming weeks.

All of them have talked about how playing for USA Basketball, watching other great players' discipline and preparations, has really helped them elevate their game. The structure and winning atmosphere that Coach K, President Jerry Colangelo and CEO Jim Tooley bring to it must help too. Something clicks within and makes them understand their worth at the world stage and their capability of achieving international superstardom.

For us in the international community, having seen our players grow from competing at the world stage, it is a no-brainer. They get better. Playing in the World Cup or the Olympics helps. The numbers and achievements above prove it.

When I look at these 2015 NBA Playoffs, I look at how this is not the first time that "B or C" USA Basketball talent have jumped to or solidified themselves as "A" talent in a matter of months. For everybody involved, international basketball, USA Basketball, the NBA, the franchise and the player...that is a quantifiable gain. 

William Rosario

FIBA

FIBA's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

FIBA takes no responsibility and gives no guarantees, warranties or representations, implied or otherwise, for the content or accuracy of the content and opinion expressed in the above article.

William Rosario

William Rosario

If you want the jet-lagged musings of a guy who spends half the year living basketball in the Americas right there in the organisational trenches of the continent's senior and youth championships, along with the South American and FIBA Americas League, then this column is definitely for you. William Rosario, FIBA Americas Communications Director by day and filmmaker by night (some nights), joins FIBA's team of columnists from around the world to bring you "Somewhere in the Americas".