The United States men's basketball team entered the 2004 Athens Games as the gold-medal favorite, just as it had done at every Olympics since the sport was introduced in 1936. By the time of the opening ceremony in Athens, the US had racked up four times as many Olympic golds (12) as the rest of the world combined, and had only lost two Olympic games in its history.

But after three losses and a lowly bronze in Athens, the behemoth of the sport suddenly looked vulnerable, evenbeatable.

Now teams like Athens Olympic champ Argentina and world champion Spain have emerged as new international powerhouses, forcing the US to ditch its cavalier attitude toward other national teams and adopt a new philosophy of player selection.

In the past, a rotating 10-member committee got together every couple of years to choose the best ballers in the country. The national group was not much more than a higher-profile all-star team. Olympic selection was a nice reward for a good regular-season performance, but little thought was given to the concept of "team".

The selection process had worked just fine since FIBA, basketball's governing body, decided to allow NBA players to participate in the Olympics starting in 1992. The "Dream Team" of the 1992 Barcelona Games was perhaps the greatest collection of basketball players the game has ever seen. Led by Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, the team obliterated opponents, winning every game by an average of nearly 44 points.

After racking up similar results in 1996 and 2000, the allure of the Olympics had seemingly faded for the Americans by the time Athens rolled round. All but three of the national players who had helped the team qualify pulled out of the Olympics for reasons ranging from weddings to security concerns. This left USA Basketball scrambling to find willing replacements with only a few months to spare.

The 2004 bronze medal may not have constituted a disaster, but it was clearly a wakeup call that the US would be pitted against pushovers. After the Games, Jerry Colangelo, the new managing director of USA Basketball, made it his personal mission to assemble a true team. He joined with head coach Mike Krzyzewski to see out not only superstars like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, but role players like Michael Redd, Deron Williams and Tyson Chandler, the kind of players who can round out a roster to make it a complete unit.

He demanded commitment from his players, meeting with each one "eyeball to eyeball" and personally inviting them to be a part of his vision for the national team. It was this personal connection, says USA Basketball spokesman Craig Miller, that brought new meaning to playing for the US national team.

"When you meet face to face with someone and ask for that commitment, and then they put sweat and tears and effort inthere is ownership," he said.

A lot has changed in basketball since star-struck internationals were facing against their NBA idols, posing together for photos before every game as they did in 1992. Now many international stars are NBA idols themselves.

Miller admits some of the mystique has left the US national team.

"It's kind of become like meatloaf and potatoes," he said. "It's no big deal."

(China Daily 05/16/2008 page7)