Something interesting is happening half a world away. Something no one could have predicted. Or designed into an effects-buzzed video game. And it's not just that
Jerry Colangelo's throwback vision of what an All-American basketball "team" should be is actually coming to fruition and kicking global butt again. Or that we find ourselves caring about - even liking -
Team USA again.
No, the most intriguing phenomenon taking place in Saitama, Japan is that the person leading America's extreme makeover is undergoing quite a metamorphosis himself. One no one could have predicted. Not for a player who's shown us plenty of skills but who has been the enigma among the triangle of youth that was to drag the NBA from the muck of the
post-Jordan era.LeBron James and
Dwyane Wade have done their parts, and I don't even need to tell you why. And then there was
Carmelo Anthony.
Among the three - all taken before the first commercial in the
2003 NBA Draft - the 6-8 forward for the
Denver Nuggets
is the fluid one with the crooked, boyish smile, distinctive headband and the signature braids. He's the offensive artist whose instinctive moves made defenders seem to be little more than escorts to the rim. Fall down seven times? Please. Carmelo was too smooth to be knocked down.
He averaged nearly 23 points, six rebounds and three assists during his first three years in the pros, and was an all-star last season. Yet those achievements couldn't erase the images that reminded us that he was - like so many young jocks - still a kid. One still finding the right way. Off the floor he made youthful missteps, like appearing - inadvertently, it turned out - in a DVD called
"Stop Snitching" in which alleged drug dealers from his old, troubled Baltimore neighborhood talked about what happens to people who squeal to the cops. In the video he was heard saying he'd thrown his Olympic bronze medal into a lake.
Not that I blamed him (for his contribution to the lake). His experience two years ago in Athens wasn't exactly life-affirming. The team essentially stunk, after a solid start he fell into head coach
Larry Brown's pit of horrors never to emerge. He was subsequently seen as a sulking symbol of all that was wrong with American ball. Or why the dream had become a nightmare.
Now Anthony may be the primary reason we're rooting for Team USA again. Since the onset of the team trials, through "training camp" and the preliminary rounds and now into the elimination segment of the
FIBA World Championships, the name on everyone's lips has been Anthony's. For all the right reasons. An octopus on the offensive end, he's been all but impossible to guard (he led the U.S.A. in scoring in three of its six games and tallied more total points,118, than anyone). More critically, he's embraced and shined in his role as tri-captain, along with LeBron and D-Wade, of course.
During a telephone call early Sunday morning (for me) from Japan where he'd just led the U.S. in a 113-73 elimination round smoking of Australia and won a couple of hands playing cards with his teammates, Anthony sounded confident and at ease about his growth and the mission of Team USA's new kids on the block. "We've got guys who want to be here," he said. "Guys who know why we're here. We told each other, Let's prove everybody wrong who says the world has caught up with us."
One particular Carmelo Anthony story making the rounds occurred last month when the team was still coming together in Las Vegas, head coach
Mike Krzyzewski (Is anyone still saying college coaches can't succeed in the NBA?) called an involuntary practice. But Anthony rousted everyone. "I just said, 'Let's all go to the gym,' and we did. It's little things like that that show when we have one voice we can do tremendous things."
Anthony isn't running from his youthful faux-pas, either. In fact, his experiences, and those of his still-tender tri-captains, have positioned them as caretakers and mentors on this young team, which features neophytes like New Orleans point guard
Chris Paul, who'll enter his second season in the fall, and third-year Orlando center/forward
Dwight Howard. "People make mistakes and learn from them," he said. "We look out for the young guys. I hope maybe they'll see my life and not make some of my mistakes."
The source of the new Anthony, which was apparent from the moment he arrived for team trials in mid-season condition. "Confidence, really," he said. "I came in on a mission. I wanted to bring U.S. basketball back where it was supposed to be." That jibed with Coach K's mandate, which helped Anthony erase any preconceived notions the Duke coach may have had about the player. "He lets us be ourselves, as long as we give him what he wants," Anthony says.
And that would be? "Intensity and defense. That's all he wants."
The experience in Japan has all but solidified the relationship between Anthony, Wade and James, who's slipped into the role of playmaker on this team, allowing his two cohorts to dominate the "pts" line of the stat sheet. "We were always close but we're a lot closer than we were. We knew what we had to do and now no one will be able to break us up."
Now Anthony only wants two things, the first being taking the next step in returning the U.S. to its rightful hoops glory by defeating Germany Wednesday in the quarters. The latter won't come for some time - not until next season when he hopes his renaissance in Japan will continue. The Nuggets have not get survived the first round of the playoffs in the Anthony Era. Last season he "witnessed" James catapulting Cleveland into a near-upset of defending-champion Detroit in the second round last season, and saw D-Wade earn a ring.
The trio may be close, but Anthony now knows what HE has to do in Denver, and he seems better prepared for the challenge. "I can't wait," he said.
