After a disappointing bronze medal at the 2004 Olympic Games, the 2008 American team sought redemption. This is how he obtained it.
The iconic moment associated with him Redemption Team (Redeem Team)rightly, is Kobe Bryant With a finger on the lips.
The challenging pose, after a blunt triple while receiving a foul at a crucial moment of the party for the gold medal, overflowed symbolism: Kobe did not want anyone in him Wukesong Arena of Pekín They will keep silent, and his legions of Chinese fans in the stands shouted anyway. His intention was to silence the belief that Americans were no longer the kings of the world court.
That repetition will be on the screens this weekend in Springfield, Massachusetts, When the 2008 Male Olympic team is officially exalted in the Basketball Hall of Basketball Naismith Memorial.
The 13 Bryant points in the last quarter of that day, and especially the four -point play that stuck a ball in the heart of Spain, are some of the pillars of the tradition of that team.
The arc of redemption is the most tangible of that summer, after the decline of the American team to bronze in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and the four years of suffocating shame that followed. It was also a moment of redemption for Bryant, consecrated posthumously for the second time this week, considering the moment and place of his career.
But while the celebration of the team will naturally have as its central axis the memory of Bryant, the history of the redemption team is much deeper than only that last quarter, or only that summer. That gold was the result of a tortuous trip, and many of the players who received the deserved tribute in the Hall of Fame left him with as many scars as an effort.
After doing your first Training as a new coach of the American team in July 2006, Mike Krzyzewski He made a tactical ad. It was at the UNLV in Las Vegas, the new headquarters of the national team after the rise of Jerry Colangelo as executive director and Salvador of the program. It was promised to total workforce and a much greater budget, something than the then NBA Commissioner, David Stern, He had agreed as part of his aggressive hiring of the executive veteran.
Krzyzewski and Colangelo had been on a tour that consisted of equal parts to listen and preach. They were going to respect the international game, they had repeated it repeatedly, and how it threatened to overcome Americans, something demonstrated not only in Athens, but also in the 2002 World Championship, where the streak of 59 international victories of Americans ended up on its way to a sixth place.
There would be reverence for the rules, rival players and style. But then, after his first training as a coach, Krzyzewski declared: “Anyone who knows me knows not play in the area.”
Krzyzewski was trained by the then army coach, Bobby Knight, To play fiercely man to man in West Point. Duke’s players in the 1990s, under the direction of ‘Coach K’they were not known for reaching the court and then putting a 2-3 formation. But that was not at all adjusted to the spirit of embracing the international game he had been selling; The zonal defense had been used effectively by European teams.
In 2007, the American team returned to the UNLV, forced to play and win the FIBA AmeriCup to classify themselves to Olympics.
The summer of 2006 ended with another disappointment: a renewed and rethinking American team was humiliated by Greece in the World Championship, in a match in which his defense was shattered by the simple Pick-And-Roll. As in 2004, they returned home with bronze medals that they kept in a drawer and never looked again.
In the first possession of the first game of 2007, against Venezuela, the Krzyzewski team defended with an area.
This moment is not remembered as Triple by Bryant, the famous Alley-Oop pass behind the back of the back Dwyane Wade in Beijing or a powerful overturning of LeBron James. But these tests and lessons are also part of what that group lived long before getting on the plane towards China.
Four players will enter the Hall of Fame as part of the Redeem Team this weekend and have a unique understanding of that road. Wade, James, Carmelo Anthony and Carlos Boazer were part of the great disappointment for the Bronze Medal in 2004, which ended the generation of the Olympic domain of the American team.
None of them played a lot – one of the many things for which the then coach of the American team, Larry Brown, fHe then criticized – everyone already disliked the experience.
“I am sitting on the podium receiving the bronze medal as if ‘this were a loss of time,” James said in the Redeem team documentary, released by Netflix three years ago. “At that time, I was definitely not going to play again for the American team.”
Three more players ended with gold in 2008 –Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh y Chris Paul– They joined Anthony, James and Wade in the 2006 team in Japan for the World Championship that was supposed to represent a turning point towards victory. All were part of a group of players who responded to the demand of Colangelo to commit to the national team for several summers. For James and Anthony, this ended up giving up summer months in four of his first five years in the NBA.
Instead of obtaining some type of reward in 2006, they were exposed by the Greeks, who flaunks the weak points of the American staff and, despite all the stellar power and the excellent coach, the American team seemed unable to do anything about it.
There may have been some progress, some teamwork, but in the end, the environment, once again, was lousy.
“When we lost against Greece, and I didn’t lie to them, we didn’t want to return home,” Paul said in the book “Basketball: a love story.” “I tell you, we didn’t want to go home. That was one of the toughest defeats I’ve felt.”
But if there was a place where the American team really began its way to the gold medal in 2008, it was probably outside Tokyo. The day after the defeat against Greece, the team lost by nine points before the Argentina led by Manu Ginobili, 2004 Olympic Champion that had defeated the United States on the way to that gold.
At a time where the American team could have lost control – a quality that the Americans acquired during a streak of international defeats that they covered from 2002 to the previous day – the players clung to the attack and turned the game around, moving away to achieve victory and slightly avenging the Olympic defeat against the Argentines. Thus began a winning streak that would last more than a decade.
Wade, James and Anthony added 69 points and then committed, practically instantly, to return the following summer (although Wade ended did not play by injury) to qualify for the Olympic Games after not having achieved it in Japan.
They were miserable, but determined.
During the game For the 2008 Gold Medal in Beijing, the experienced Spanish team approached two points of the Americans in the last quarter, and Krzyzewski asked for a dead time. The legendary coach later commented that, despite all NBA championship rings, university titles, MVP and hundreds of millions of dollars in net assets at that meeting, he thought it was probably the most tense moment they had lived in their careers. Krzyzewski had prepared some things to say, but it was Bryant who took the reins. “There are many players here that are nervous,” Bryant said in the documentary about the situation. “I know they feel the pressure much more than me. I know I’m ready.” The following minutes of Bryant on the court were recorded in the record books. This moment of leadership will always have the appreciation of all those involved in the program. But while he could have been the most memorable, it may not have been the most decisive. Nor was what Bryant did in the group stage against Spain at the Olympic Games. He surprised his teammates when he announced, before the game, in the costumes, who knew exactly what play the Spaniards would begin and that he intended to run over his friend and partner of Los Angeles LakersPau Gasol, to send a message to all about its sincerity in this whole matter. Of course he did it, knocking down a stunned gasol on the court with frown just seconds after the initial jump. But it was really the previous summer, when the Americans had to win the FIBA Americanup to obtain the Olympic candidacy, when Bryant’s leadership campaign really began. Bryant’s example is legendary in USA Basketballpersonified during the preseason, when Bryant made sure to be in the hotel’s lobby when his teammates returned from a long night at a Las Vegas nightclub so they could see him go to the gym to train before dawn. It was during that time that James, yearning to take the next step as a leader after his first experience in the NBA finals months before, began to study Bryant’s habits and style. James later commented that this experience helped him find his voice and ethics as a leader, a feature from which Basketball uses continues to benefit in the modern era. Soon, James joined Bryant in those first training, and other colleagues followed him. James was one of the leaders of the 2024 United States team that won his fifth consecutive Olympic gold in Paris, 16 years after the start of the streak, when James marked the pattern with a very serious and intense training camp, again in Las Vegas. In a way, part of this can be attributed to Bryant and the tone marked in 2007. ANTHONY Y HOWARD They are doubly honored in Springfield this week, both for their races and players and for their role in obtaining gold in Beijing. They will be the fifth and sixth members of the 2008 team who will enter the Hall of Fame for their individual careers, joining Bryant, Jason Kidd, Wade y Bosh. James and Paul, both NBA players who continue playing after 40 years, will make history by being the first active NBA players to be included. Krzyzewski and Colangelo have been honored, as well as the assistant coach of Redeem Team, Jim Boeheim, who, after three Olympic golds and two World Cups together, finally helped convince Krzyzewski to play frequently in Zonal defense in Duke. In total, the Redeem Team is already one of the most decorated in history: the 1992 Dream Team had 11 members of the Hall of Fame and remains impeccable. His role in the history of basketball is undeniable, and his footprints are present in the gold -won in London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2021 and Paris last year. There are many years and many victories to process, and all success can overshadow the recognition together. This celebration seeks to ensure that its singularity is properly recognized, but the reasons why Redeem Team is indelible begin much earlier and continue long after 2008. “When the gold medals were delivered in Beijing, the American anthem was interpreted and the flag was raised, it was a moment of total fullness,” said Colangelo when the distinction of the Hall of Fame was announced earlier this year. “Rarely someone has the opportunity to have a game plan, see him executed perfectly and obtain the desired result. That was what happened and directed our United States basketball team, in the last 20 years, towards many gold medals.”
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