Basketball Are They Kidding?

By Paul A. Witteman

The players on the bench saw it coming, edging forward on their seats in anticipation. Michael Jordan was about to take the defender from Argentina on a quick and not-so-flattering trip to the hoop. Five-hundred-pound sneakers: that's what it appeared the Argentine was wearing as Jordan effortlessly rose as from a trampoline for one of his trademark, gravity-defying pirouettes above the rim. The Argentine seemed to shrink to the size of a circus midget. As Jordan dunked the ball, the players on the bench leaped up and cheered the best basketball player the world has ever seen. In Spanish.

! That's right. The players cheering Jordan so wildly were the very Argentines whom he was reducing to the level of kids playing pickup on the playground. No matter. "I played with great happiness against the monsters," Argentine center Hernan Montenegro said later. Added guard Marcelo Milanesio: "When we met at the center of the court, I was very excited that it was Magic Johnson shaking my hand."

So it went at the Tournament of the Americas in Portland, Ore., last month, where the Argentines and everyone else came to pose for pictures with Michael, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and their merry band of N.B.A. All-Star troubadours. In between, they played a little basketball. Very little. Take Cuba: with 3 1/ 2 min. remaining in the game, the team was behind by 70 points, and only the final horn saved it from losing by 100 or more. Panama dropped a cliff- hanger by a mere 60.

When the tournament ended, with the Americans barely breaking a sweat except on the golf course, where they seemed to spend most of their time, everyone was ready to concede the gold medal in Barcelona to the assemblage now and forever more to be known simply as the Dream Team. Nevada bookmakers, who never miss an opportunity to make a dollar, have fastidiously refused to post odds or take a bet. The only surer wager than the Dream Team may be that George Foreman will not try to make it next as a featherweight.

U.S. coach Chuck Daly has at his disposal the greatest arsenal of offensive and defensive weapons ever gathered on a basketball court. There are passers with 360 degrees vision like Bird (despite his creaky back), John Stockton and Magic. Chris Mullin and Jordan are excellent three-point shooters. No one in possession of his faculties and desirous of retaining them would dare drive down the lane into territory defended by Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone. Jordan and his Chicago Bulls teammate Scottie Pippen are tenacious open-court defenders. Then too there are Clyde Drexler and the Admiral, David Robinson. Twelfth man Christian Laettner will probably get a great view of all this talent mostly from the bench.

And what of the Olympic opposition? The dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia has eviscerated the teams that won the gold and silver medals in Seoul in 1988. The best former Soviet players now wear the uniform of Lithuania. Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac led Yugoslavia to the silver medal at Seoul. This time, however, Yugoslavia as such has been banned from Barcelona. Petrovic, a New Jersey Net, will play for Croatia. Divac, a Los Angeles Laker and a Serb, will not be allowed to play. The Germans will be competitive; N.B.A. star Detlef Schrempf will make them so. And in Oscar Schmidt, the Brazilians have one of the game's best three-point shooters. But even if you put all these players on one squad, it would make no difference. The remaining 11 teams in the Olympic tournament will be scuffling for silver.

Still, American coach Daly is not known as the "prince of pessimism" for nothing. He is publicly worried that since games in the Olympics are eight minutes shorter than those in the N.B.A., his juggernaut might dawdle, fall behind and wait until it is too late to mount a rally. Hey, chill out, replies Jordan. "We have too much talent, and we'll turn it on whenever we have to." Daly frets that the three-point shooting line in international basketball is closer to the basket than in the N.B.A. and that the lane is wider, both tending to nullify the Americans' height advantage. However, after seeing how little difference these factors made in his team's 136-57 loss to the Yanks, Cuban coach Miguel Gomez seemed transported to a Zen mode. "One finger cannot cover the sun," he said.

But the dream that must give Daly the worst night sweats features a player like Butch Lee. Back in 1976, Lee was not invited to the U.S. Olympic basketball trials. Instead, he played for the team from his native Puerto Rico. Spurred by a desire for revenge over the slight he felt he had suffered at the hands of the U.S. selection committee, Lee whipsawed the Americans with the performance of his life. He scored 35 points and almost single-handedly took the highly favored U.S. team to within seconds of a humiliating loss.

In Daly's updated nightmare, the Butch Lee role is played by Lithuanian Sarunas Marciulionis, an N.B.A. star who plays for the Golden State Warriors. Daly sees Marciulionis sinking three-pointers like an automaton from 30 ft., with Lithuanian center Arvidas Sarbonis playing for one night like Bill Russell in his prime.

Maybe. All sporting contests before they are played contain an element that Princeton basketball coach Pete Carril calls "glorious uncertainty." Anything can happen, as Carril's teams have proved season after remarkable season against superior opposition. But not this superior. "This is not a great team," says Carril. "This is the greatest team ever." Don Nelson, the + shrewd and artful coach of the Golden State Warriors, whose son Donn is helping to coach Marciulionis and the Lithuanians, agrees. "The once-in-a- lifetime game is not going to happen," he says. "The Dream Team will not allow any second shots. Even if the Americans play poorly, there shouldn't be a close game. They haven't even tried yet."

When they do, is a shutout conceivable? Now there's a fantasy for the Dream Team to ponder. Sleep on it, Michael. Just don't forget to set your alarm clock.

With reporting by Brian Cazeneuve/Portland