Kovacevic: Are these Games showing basketball is deeper globally than hockey?

Aug 16, 2016 • 12:01 am

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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Finally had a chance to catch the NBA guys here.

No, not those NBA guys. The Americans were off Monday after sweeping through the round-robin portion of Olympic basketball at 5-0, and they won't take the court again until the quarterfinals Wednesday.

But that's just fine, because there are plenty of other NBA guys in the tournament, 47 in all, plus seven more who have been drafted but haven't yet signed. Ten of the 12 Olympic nations have at least one NBA player -- all but China and Venezuela -- and 24 of the league's 30 teams back home are represented.

That's stunning.

And in the game I opted to pop by -- no real reason, just a light night -- Spain and its seven NBA players, including Pau Gasol, got the best of Argentina and its four NBA players, including Manu Ginobili, by a 92-73 count at jam-packed Carioca Arena.

Which is to say ... wow, between the two North American major leagues that compete in the Olympics, has basketball overtaken hockey in terms of global riches?

I'm only asking. No real hypothesis to offer. Nothing heavy.

My initial inclination is to say no, if only because the U.S. still owns the thing, until it doesn't. Beginning with the NBA's involvement in 1992 with the one and only team anyone should ever call a Dream Team -- unless there's another with 14 Hall of Famers! -- the Americans have won five of the six tournaments, most of them running away.

The lone exception was the 2004 train wreck in Athens. I covered a bunch of the American games in that tournament, as I'd been assigned to cover McKeesport's Swin Cash on the women's side, and one of those was the men's phenomenal loss to Puerto Rico. And when I say phenomenal, it's because it was never in doubt. The Puerto Ricans simply planted this 40-year-old, 6-foot-11 redwood named Jose Ortiz in the paint and seized on the international lack of a three-second violation. The U.S. got discouraged, kicked it back out to an ice-cold Allen Iverson, and that was it.

Final score: 92-73.

And again, it wasn't that close. Here's my coverage from that night.

Otherwise, though, the Americans have more than done the job. In fact, if you omit that 5-3 debacle in Greece, they're 45-0 between Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Beijing, London and here.

For me, that's the singular separator. Because even though there's mounting evidence that the rest of the world is ramping up in hoops in Europe and here in South America, there's just as much evidence that the U.S. keeps on adding its own distance. As in 50 consecutive international games, including the past 34 in the FIBA World Cup by an average margin of 29.4 points, and 22 in a row now at the Olympics.

Put it another way: Who's No. 2 in the world?

If you have to ponder that for two seconds, that's too long.

The games here have been closer, including 94-91 over Serbia, 100-97 over France and a tighter-than-it-sounds 98-88 over Australia.

In hockey?

Eh, it's still Canada's game, including the past two Olympic golds in Vancouver and Sochi, thanks in no small part to some Kid whose day job is in Pittsburgh. Canada also won in 2002, thanks in no small part to a certain other Pittsburgher. So that's 3 of 5 since the NHL joined the Games for Nagano in 1998.

But the Canadians, as every last one of them would attest, hardly dominated. If anything, their most bitter and vocal critics were their own citizens, maliciously at times, for not dominating. And in the two Games they didn't win, they didn't medal at all.

At the same time, the U.S. has become a legit rival, if not an outright peer just yet, while Sweden advanced to the gold medal game in Sochi, Finland has medaled in four of the five NHL-fueled Games, the Russians could beat anyone if they'd ever find a goaltender, and the Czechs famously stole gold in Nagano thanks to Dominik Hasek and Jaromir Jagr.

That's a more even pool by any reckoning.

But ask me again Sunday. The way the American NBA guys are defending here, they might need to put up 200 to win.

• You bet, I'll take the international game over the NBA.

I don't have a problem with the NBA, per se, though I'll fess up to not watching much because it almost never involves Pittsburgh. But I prefer ball movement to dunks and traveling, which is why I also prefer college basketball, women's basketball and high school basketball to the NBA. It's nothing more than a personal perspective.

• Anyone still ruling out Usain Bolt as the greatest Olympian of all time?

Swimming comes first, and track comes next in the Games' chronology. Always been that way. Let's see it play out. All I'm saying. If Bolt goes 9 for 9 as an Olympic sprinter, and he continues to mop up the field as he did in the 100, the only rational argument left for Michael Phelps will be that he had more medals while participating in seven times the number of events.

• Bolt called it "really stupid" that the IOC had the runners in the 100 race a semifinal and a final less than an hour apart. Surely, there has to be stronger language for it than that.

These guys train four years for 10 seconds. They're the main attraction at track and field. And yet, to hear all of them Sunday night, they weren't able to run their best because of a silly semi that achieved little more than weeding out runners who didn't have a prayer.

• Hm. So this vague Ryan Lochte tale of armed robbery by Brazilian gunmen, which smelled fishy to me from the start, apparently still hasn't washed off the stench. Read up on all the contradictory information, lack of evidence and the whole deal here at the Wall Street Journal. It's compelling stuff.

Imagine how much more compelling it'll be if it emerges that Lochte lied.

Bear in mind that one of the people denying it ever happened was Lochte himself, for crying out loud. And then, less than 12 hours later, he's boasting to NBC about what a he-man he'd become in refusing some gunman's orders to go to the ground.

• The young lady above, Shaunae Miller of the Bahamas, took that dive toward the finish line to beat Allyson Felix of the U.S. in the 400 meters Monday night. A whole lot of complaining ensued, but it was completely legal according to international track regulations, which only stipulate that the runner's torso is what counts, not the head, hands or anything else.

It might not be a bad idea to modify that rule. Runners around the world watched that race, including youngsters who don't get the benefit of the super-slick IAAF-certified track here in Rio. They could cut themselves up something fierce trying that at, oh, Cupples Stadium on the South Side.

That said ... man, what a moment. The 400 was expected to be memorable regardless, but now no one will forget it.

• Did you know gymnastics judges have to be paid $300 in order to hear an appeal of a score?

Not making this up, you guys.

And it goes up to $500 for a second appeal, $1,000 for a third appeal.

The thinking, if you can call it that, is that charging competitors to file an appeal limits the appeals being made frivolously or excessively.

Dear Lord, people, just put a limit on the number of appeals.

I'll be here a while longer if you need anything else.

• But not much longer. I'm actually expecting to head home in the next couple of days, now that our most local Olympians are either through competing, have been eliminated or aren't participating much.

We're proud to have covered Amanda Polk, the rower from Bloomfield, taking gold, and Leah Smith, the swimmer from Mt. Lebanon, taking a gold and bronze, as well as Gibsonia's Meghan Klingenberg in soccer and Hopewell's Christa Dietzen in volleyball. The goal here has been to cover the Olympics from a Pittsburgh perspective, and that's coming to a close.

At every Olympics, I've done a reporter's decathlon -- an idea brazenly borrowed, with kind permission, from Tom Reed of the Akron Beacon-Journal way back in Athens -- in which I cover 10 events over two columns. And by cover I mean ... well, you'll see. Basically, it gives me an excuse to get to the velodrome.

Those will be coming Wednesday and Thursday.

• Final thought for the day: When evaluating the overall quality of an Olympics -- organization, security, class, etc. -- wouldn't it be fair to grade on a curve?

I mean, what are we achieving by comparing Rio to, say, London?

Are we pretending that the Brazilians and the British began with a level playing field?

If so, to what end?