Friday, 21.07.2006	posted by Cindy Garcia-Bennett  10:10am
Category: FIBA World Championship

.................................................................................................................

"TEAM USA FORGET PAST - LIVE IN HERE AND NOW"

There sure has been a lot of negativity surrounding Team USA in international tournaments in recent years but thankfully, it's all in the past.

For the first time, it seems, Team USA truly acknowlege there are great players and great teams everywhere and that bodes well with the FIBA World Championship just around the corner.

Even with Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant unable to play following knee surgery there are positive vibes in the American camp.

LeBron James was among those who had to settle for a bronze medal at the Athens Olympic and boy did that burn!

"I don't know what happened," he said.

"I think it's going to be different this time. I think having a training camp is going to make it a lot different. We trained for probably three or four days in 2004, and now we're going to train for two weeks."

Why did it take so long for them to realise this?

Two years before Greece in Indianapolis, Team USA lost to Yugoslavia in the quarter finals of the FIBA World Championship - the ultimate humiliation on home soil.

That tournament marked the first time an American team with NBA players had lost.

"My feeling is, you don't think about the past," USA coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

"We have a responsibility right here. Past is past..."

Coach K, a legendary boss at Duke University, seems to already have everything under control.

He must like his chances of returning the Americans to prominence, especially with players likes James and Dwyane Wade, the most valuable player of the NBA finals with the Miami Heat.

Wade, another member of the Athens team, knows they have to get their hands dirty in Japan.

"We've got to work," Wade said. "This is not two years ago, when we thought we could go out there and it would just happen. Now we've got to go out there with our best foot forward and really play."