LONDON — Toss patriotism in the dumpster. The NBA is too big to play for love of country. Here comes David Stern, the grinch determined to steal a sweet hoops dream from the Olympics.
By imposing a maximum age limit on Olympic rosters, Stern wants to kick out LeBron James and Dirk Nowitzki from the Summer Games. That might make Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban happy.
But it would be bad for basketball. During the past 20 years, Olympic competition has raised the game’s profile around the world higher than anything since a gravity-defying dunk by Michael Jordan.
Remember when basketball in America was a source of sports shame? Stern and too many people in the NBA have apparently forgotten.
“I want people to recognize what USA Basketball and its participation in the Olympics has done for the players individually, what it has done for the NBA and what we’ve done for the interest in basketball on a worldwide basis. I’m talking about NBA people, team owners. Some get it. Some don’t want to get it,” said Jerry Colangelo, who took over the direction of Team USA seven years ago, when the nation’s hoops reputation was in tatters.
By recruiting the best and brightest Americans in the sport, Colangelo made it cool again to wear U.S. colors on the free-throw line. In its past 55 games, the record of the men’s national team is 54-1.
“When you’re handed a program that was on its behind and you start over and you build it and you’ve got it operating on all cylinders, then somebody says, “You know what? Maybe we’re going to change this,’ you’re kind of shocked and stunned by it,” Colangelo said. “But you have to stop and you have to listen. Look, I’m a big boy, I’ve been around the track.”
When the U.S. men open tournament play Sunday against France, it figures to be the beginning of the end of Olympic basketball as we know it. This is not to suggest Stern has zero allegiance to the red, white and blue.
But his real loyalty gets cozy under the covers with green. The NBA commish is driven by the bottom line.
Twenty years after the Dream Team, featuring legendary Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, dropped from the clouds to mingle like basketball gods among the hurdlers and wrestlers at the Games, this Olympic basketball tournament is just starting to get good. There’s no guarantee the USA will win. Heck, Argentina took home gold in 2004. All across Spain there’s smack talk about bouncing the Americans from the top of the podium this year.
Stern, however, wants all the fun to end. The NBA is lobbying to turn the Olympic tourney into a second-tier clambake for players no older than 23. Goodbye, Kobe Bryant. Can you say: Turn the channel?
Here’s the funny part: NBA superstars, often dissed for being greedy, don’t want to come out of the Games.
If the league had forced Carmelo Anthony off the Olympic roster after he returned from Greece in 2004 with a bronze medal, he insists, “I’d have been sick.” With three trips to the Games already on his resume, the 28-year-old Melo doesn’t want this party to end, telling me: “There should be no age limit. I want to come back and play in 2016.”
The motivation for the NBA putting the kibosh has nothing to do with concern for its high-paid superstars getting hurt by playing too much basketball. That notion is pure hypocrisy, Colangelo suggested. If health were the issue, we would have never witnessed a condensed NBA schedule that led to Chicago superstar Derrick Rose ripping up his knee in the playoffs.
What Stern wants to do is steal a page from soccer, promote the freshly named World Cup of Basketball, making that tournament bigger than the Olympics. Why? Three answers: 1) money, 2) power, and 3) more money. You can bet the NBA would control the cash register at the tourney of Stern’s dreams.
Bottom line: Stern wants to tear down the Olympics to build up the World Cup.
Here’s hoping it won’t happen without a fight. At the very least, push the age limit to 25. Or let every team have three exemptions to the age restriction, the very rule in men’s Olympic soccer that allows 38-year-old Manchester United midfield Ryan Giggs to represent England on the pitch at these Games.
Nurturing the international reputation of American basketball back to all its red, white and blue glory has been Colangelo’s baby. Stern wants to rock the cradle. Isn’t that enough to make a proud guy mad?
“Yeah, but babies grow up and move on,” Colangelo said.
Remember the basketball ideal that was born with the Dream Team of Larry and Magic?
Say goodnight.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053, mkiszla@denverpost.com or twitter.com/markkiszla
