BOSTON — The NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics won’t be the last basketball battle of the summer. Sixteen years after the U.S. Dream Team initiated an Olympic and global basketball renaissance, and four years after the worst Olympic showing in U.S. history caused unprecedented self-examination, there is widespread domestic disagreement on what Olympic role, if any, NBA players should have.
The Beijing Olympics begin in two months and for the fifth time NBA players will compete. The U.S. team again will have only professional players, to the delight of NBA Commissioner David Stern, but to the detriment of the league, if you believe skeptics such as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Lakers coach Phil Jackson.
The difference of opinion was highlighted one recent day in Los Angeles when, before an NBA playoff game, Stern and Jackson expressed their opinions about NBA player participation in the Olympics. Jackson, who has had both hips replaced and walks with the assistance of a cane, said: “The wear and tear of the NBA game on the body of a player … you only have to watch me walk out to the court to understand that is probably like putting ten years into one year of a normal human being’s body because of the grind of this game. So, the rest and recuperation they can get in the offseason is really important for the players. (But) we’ve joined World Basketball in this cause to chase whatever … whatever it means to the NBA to have our game worldwide and to notify the rest of the world how good our teams are in the USA.”
Jackson believes the NBA is putting its greatest assets, its players, at risk in its quest to promote its brand worldwide. “We’ve tried to chase the gold in the Olympics and the World Cup,” he said. “I just think we’re taking some of our best players and putting them in positions where it’s tough for them to continue to play. I thought it hurt (Spurs star Tim) Duncan the year they went to Greece (2004). I think San Antonio asked (Manu) Ginobili to not play this year in the trials and he didn’t participate with the Argentina team. …
“Kobe (Bryant) and I talked … we were plotting out the real scenario from here on out for his career about the protection of his career. You know, taking care of his body, resting when he has to rest, and not doing an undue amount of work without cause or purpose.”
Bryant, along with the Celtics’ Paul Pierce, Cleveland’s LeBron James, Orlando’s Dwight Howard and Phoenix’s Amare Stoudemire, are among the all-stars expected to play in Beijing, against international teams that are also led by NBA players.
Minutes later, told of Jackson’s comments, Stern said: “I don’t think they abuse their bodies during the Olympics period. It is extra basketball. But that’s the reality of it. The Olympics have helped the NBA, the globalization of basketball, our coaches and our players. … The reality is it remains an extraordinary stage, and the basketball ticket in Beijing will be the number one ticket in the sport.”
Cuban openly disputes even the notion that playing in the Olympics is the best business move. In his blog Cuban writes, “I’ve said it before and I will say it again: The NBA is making a huge mistake by letting our players participate in the Olympics and its qualifying competitions.”
Cuban takes exception even with the way the NBA uses its brand in the Summer Games. “It can be a decent business if done right,” he writes about involving the league in international basketball. “Unfortunately for the NBA, this is the only place where we give away our trademark and assets and we shouldn’t. If the game of basketball truly has grown to the level of interest we all think and hope it has, then we should just dump playing for the Olympics and hold our own tournament. If we were really, really smart we would work with the NHL, NFL, MLB and USA Track &Field organizations, tennis and other sports with strong professional bases and create our own games. Then, supporting the international development of the games would make sense.”
In a recent conversation about the Olympics, Cuban, too, worried about the physical toll on the players. He fretted over the health of his all-star, Dirk Nowitzki, Germany’s best player, as Jackson did Bryant.
Asked this past week at the NBA Finals about the physical risks of playing for his country, Celtics star Ray Allen, who played for the U.S. in the 2000 Olympics, said: “It definitely takes a toll on your body. And as guys get older it becomes more difficult to play all year. But you’ve got a lot of issues here. As Americans, we have such egos when it comes to international basketball. Me? I wouldn’t have it any other way than NBA players representing the U.S. The other countries are putting their best players on the floor, which now means professionals. So we need to put our best on the floor. The process probably is an issue, with the qualifying. But if you’re asking me if we should use amateurs, the answer is no. No. I am in favor of having the teams determined by essentially open tryouts. Put the 12 best on the floor, not the 12 hottest NBA players at the moment.”
Allen probably hit on the most critical issue for those concerned about players’ health. Charles Barkley, who played on the Dream Team in Barcelona in 1992 and again in 1996 in Atlanta, said this weekend: “The issue, if we’re talking about health, starts with qualifying. If these guys stop messing around and go ahead and win the gold medal, they won’t have to take more than three weeks to a month out of their lives. A month of playing other great players in the Olympics is good preparation for the next season. But if you don’t win gold or you’re not the host nation, then it can take two years of playing and practicing to qualify. And that takes the big physical toll. It takes more out of you physically to do all the stuff to qualify than it does to play six games or whatever you need to win to win the gold.”
So the question was put to Barkley, now an analyst for TNT: Should NBA players compete in the Olympics? “There are some interesting arguments on both sides, but I think the answer depends totally on whether we want to win or not,” he said. “It depends on what it means to the NBA and to the United States to win a gold medal. I’m telling you right now that if it’s important, you have to have pros. You can’t put a bunch of college kids out there and expect them to beat Ginobili, (Andres) Nocioni and (Luis) Scola of Argentina. Those guys would kill a team of college kids.”
There is no sign whatsoever the NBA is turning back. During those recent comments in Los Angeles, Stern said the NBA is going to take four teams to Europe and two teams to China in October, which means Jackson, Cuban and others can object all they want but it isn’t about to alter the current course.
“Just as baseball is played in (Japan) and football opened in England,” Stern said, “that’s the next sort of step in the expansion of American sports. … And hockey is going to open, I believe, in Scandinavia … so it’s happening and that’s just a fact of life. You can say if we went back to a 60-game schedule that would also put less wear and tear on our players. But commercially, that’s not going to happen. And internationally, it’s not going to be cut back. It’s going to continue to grow.”
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