The Redeem Team

1992 was the original Dream Team, 1996 was Dream Team II, 2000 was Dream Team III, 2004 was the Bronze Team and in 2008 the US men's basketball team have named themselves the Redeem Team.

Following the Athens debacle where the US basketball team functioned as a collection of talented individuals rather than a cohesive unit, and the 2006 FIBA World Basketball Championships where they adopted the same methodology with equally dire results, the powers that be in US basketball decided to try a different approach. They appointed the widely respected, Mike Krzyzewski, coach and they decreed that those NBA players wanting to show how much they love the Stars n Stripes had to commit to Team USA for 2 years. This has ensured stability amongst player personnel and has allowed for a more collaborative approach.

While there is no doubt that the NBA has the best basketball players in the world, a lot of those basketball players are foreign. A Rest of the World team of Pau Gasol, Yao Ming, Steve Nash, Tony Parker and Dirk Nowitzki would give a US All Star team of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Jason Kidd and Chris Bosh a good game. While some American friends of mine like to claim that the reason they won bronze in Athens and at the FIBA Basketball Championships is because the US didn't take their best players - at the 2006 FIBA Basketball Championships the US team had college players in their starting five, a more pertinent question to ask is why NBA players thumbed their noses at the opportunity to represent their country.

As Greece pointedly demonstrated at the Euro 2004 Football Championships, a well drilled unit is more than a match for a team of talented individuals as they beat France and Portugal to win the championship.

Listening to Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James interviews, you get the sense that Team USA are ready to reclaim what they consider to be their birthright - their routing of Yao Ming's China is a step in the right direction.