In the 2004 Olympics, the US Men’s Nation Basketball
team, led by players like Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan, and featuring a young
Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. The US team was also coached by Larry Brown, who
won the NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons in the 2003-04 season. This
team was one of the favorites to win the gold medal. Despite the presence of
some of the most prominent American stars, the US did not win the gold. In
fact, they didn’t even make the final. They lost to the eventual winners,
Argentina, in the semi-finals, 89-81. This Argentina team was one of the best
in their history, filled with NBA players all throughout the roster, and led by
Manu Ginóbili, a two-time NBA All-Star. The Argentinean team had more NBA
players than just Ginóbili, including Luis Scola, Fabricio Oberto, Andres
Nocioni, and Carlos Delfino.
Despite both teams making the knockout rounds, they did not
perform well in the group stages. Both Argentina and the US won only 3 out of
their 5 group games, finishing third and fourth in their groups respectively.
These results were more troubling for the US, who were historically the most
dominant team in the Olympics, winning gold at the last three Olympics, the
first three that allowed professional players to participate. The Americans
scraped through to the knockouts, and in their quarter-final match, defeated
Spain 104-92, looking on track to win their 4th gold medal in as
many Olympics, while Argentina barely defeated Greece 69-64.
In the semi-final game, the US were heavy
favorites, but the Argentineans pulled off a shock victory, led by 29 points
from Manu Ginóbili. Argentina also beat the US with teamwork, with Juan Ignacio
Sanchez leading the team in assists with 7, while Lamar Odom and Iverson led the
US with only 3 assists each. In the final, Argentina would handily beat Italy
84-69, while the US dispatched Lithuania 104-96 in the bronze medal game.
Argentina winning the gold medal was not a paradigm
shift in the hierarchy of basketball, but an aberration in the US’ continued
dominance of the sport. While the Argentinean golden generation would go on to
win a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a bronze medal at the 2012
London Olympics, they would never again reach the apex that they had reached in
2004. The US would regroup in 2008 with the famous ‘Redeem Team’, and would win
the gold in the next four successive Olympics. The Argentina squad of 2004 have
all retired, but their accomplishments will forever be etched in the history
books, as the only non-American team to win an Olympic gold since the advent of
professional players in the Olympics.
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