ESPN.com - Brand, O'Neal set to score second-chance points

ESPN.com: Olympics

Thursday, August 14, 2003
Updated: August 31, 9:07 AM ET
Brand, O'Neal set to score second-chance points

By Joe Lago
ESPN.com

NEW YORK -- They'll be wearing red, white and blue, just like last summer. But they carry the last experience of representing their country like some Scarlet Letter.

"Terrible," Elton Brand said. "The whole thing was terrible."

"It was the worst feeling ever ... the most demoralizing," Jermaine O'Neal said. "It was painful."

Brand and O'Neal would prefer to lock away those 10 days in Indianapolis like some dark past never to be brought up. But there's nothing they can do about the 2002 World Basketball Championships now. For as long as they live, as O'Neal pointed out, they will forever be affiliated with that team -- the first United States squad ever to lose with NBA players after 58 straight victories. It got worse, too, as Team USA finished in sixth place, the worst showing ever by Americans at the Worlds.


	O'Neal

Elton Brand
Brand

So, if anyone has motivation to qualify for the 2004 Olympics and bring home gold from Athens, it's these two.

"I'm excited to try and get some redemption, some vindication," said Brand during Team USA's nine-day preparation for Olympic qualifying at John Jay College.

"I don't just want to win," O'Neal said. "I want to win with class."

The 2002 Worlds team certainly didn't lose with any. A rift grew so wide between head coach George Karl and leading scorer Paul Pierce that Karl benched Pierce for the entire fourth quarter of the USA's final game, an 81-75 defeat to Spain. An hour after that last loss, most of the U.S. players were in the hotel lobby with their bags packed.

At least the Americans made history, albeit dubious, in relative obscurity at Conseco Fieldhouse, where an announced crowd of 5,623 watched the U.S.'s first defeat with NBA talent in an 87-80 loss to Argentina. In their final game, less than 1,000 fans saw the Americans waste a 13-point fourth-quarter lead in falling to Spain. Still, O'Neal was too embarrassed to be seen in public, even in his home team's town.

"The city of Indianapolis has been good to me, but I didn't want to go anywhere," the Pacers forward said.

"A lot of fans didn't come out, but they weren't even excited before they left," said Brand, who, like O'Neal, was coming off his first All-Star season. "But now this is the Olympics. This is different. We're ready. And we're gearing up."

Brand believes things would have been decidedly different at the Worlds had the world's best point guard been healthy. However, Jason Kidd's groin injury suffered in the playoffs prevented him from running the offense for Karl, whose teams rely on veteran leadership at the point.

Instead, Baron Davis -- who was Kidd's replacement on the roster and backed up by rookie Jay Williams, Ray Allen's injury replacement -- joined Pierce in pointing fingers at Karl for the team's collapse.

"Your point guard is your leader out there," Brand said. "So having a guy like that fighting for every ball, playing defense and just his knowhow and ingenuity, I think it would've been different."

	“	If you look at that team, that team was filled with guys who had never been there before. We learned we can't just take any players over there. We have to make sure we know what we're doing. With the guys on this team, you have to have leaders. You can't have 12 individual players. ”
		— Ray Allen

"You can always wonder what if," Kidd said. "Unfortunately, we were unable to participate. Maybe we could've made a difference but the world has gotten better. Two guys can't win a game."

Allen believes something good came from this monumental debacle. A valuable lesson was taught not to the players but to USA Basketball.

"If you look at that team, that team was filled with guys who had never been there before," said Allen, who didn't play due to a sore knee. "We learned we can't just take any players over there. We have to make sure we know what we're doing. With the guys on this team, you have to have leaders. You can't have 12 individual players. With Jason and myself out there, that definitely would've benefited that team."

This time, USA Basketball found the right person to meld together 12 minds who are used to being go-to guys. Larry Brown, the man in charge of getting the U.S. back on top of international hoops, speaks of "the right way" to play every day. Those with big egos won't be let onto the court.

"Anybody who is foolish enough not to realize after what happened in Indianapolis that our sport is better, that players all over the world are better, is silly," Brown said. "We understand that as a team. We have to be better. We have to keep up and improve. When we sent the Dream Team in '92, it was to improve our sport world-wide with Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles and Karl. Those guys made our sport. So we've got to understand that and respect our opponents, do everything we can to keep up.

"The whole league was hurt by what happened in Indianapolis ... but we're going to do everything we can not to make it happen."

With that pledge of allegiance, Brand and O'Neal hope to restore their own pride.

Joe Lago, who writes the "Morning Shootaround" every Wednesday during the regular season, is the NBA editor for ESPN.com.