James, Bryant Lead US Team to Beijing
June 27th, 2008
MVP Kobe Bryant has a shot at another big prize after falling short of the NBA championship, and he will have plenty of help along the way.
Bryant, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade will lead a U.S. Olympic basketball team that was announced Monday and hopes to capture the gold medal in Beijing in August after taking bronze in Athens four years ago.
The rest of the 12-player roster, picked from a pool of 33, included Carmelo Anthony, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Tayshaun Prince, Michael Redd and Deron Williams.
It was a very difficult selection process, said Jerry Colangelo, USA Basketball managing director. When you have as many outstanding players as we have in this country to select a group of 12 is obviously going to leave out a number of outstanding people.
The team was selected without a tryout. It will have a minicamp this week in Las Vegas and meet there July 20-25 to train and play an exhibition against Canada before heading overseas. The Americans open Olympic play vs. China on Aug. 10.
Although the Americans captured the gold at the Sydney Games in 2000, they no longer dominate international play as they once did. The talent gap has narrowed and many top players have chosen to not play for the national team in recent years.
Now, Team USA appears loaded. Then again, it went 5-3 in Athens and lost for the first time since NBA players started competing in 1992.
Bryant will play in his first Olympics after winning his first MVP while leading the Lakers to the finals. James averaged 30.0 points, just enough to beat Bryant for the scoring title.
Those two, along with Anthony, Kidd and Howard, started for a team that went unbeaten in the Olympic qualifying tournament last year. Eight of the 12 players headed to Beijing played on that team and six played in the 2006 world championships.
We're a team already, coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
We'll hit the ground running.
