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| ALSO SEE Hill, Mourning, Allen complete U.S. Olympic team Who should've made the Olympic team?  NBA West: Top 10 events ever out West | | | |
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 | Tuesday, January 11 Olympic team, all that Jazz and a Mavs mess Special to ESPN.com | |||
First, a quick, biased Western Conference columnist comment on the final selections for the 2000 U.S. Olympic basketball team:
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| Did Kobe ever really have a chance to make the Olympic team? |
If you don't think regional politics played a role in the selection Tuesday of three Eastern Conference players, you're more naive than I thought.
True, had Shaquille O'Neal not let it be widely known before the fact that he preferred to take the summer off to spend time with his daughter, he would have been the ninth. But there had to be some sense among the USA Basketball committee that they needed to balance the selections somewhat. There also were rumors that Phil Jackson had let it be known he preferred Bryant not be on what will, of course, be called "Dream Team IV." Something about not wanting his ego any more inflated than it already is, and isn't that more meaty fodder for the conspiracy theorists? But ask yourself this: Would you rather have seen Bryant in Sydney than Ray Allen? Of course you would, which is no slam on Allen's game. Besides, Bryant is the multi-lingual player with limitless charisma, not Allen. Most of you likely would have preferred Vince Carter over either one of them, which only proves the seductive power of the dunk is just as strong as it was in the 1980s, when Dominique Wilkins was known as the Human Highlight Reel, and the only "D" about him was the start of his first name. Oh, well. The ratio of Western to Eastern players is about right, given the shift of power in the league these days: twice as may Westerners as Easterners. In case you are wondering why two Westerners, underachieving Vin Baker and seizure-stricken Tom Gugliotta, are on the team (along with ailing Tim Hardaway), it is because the nine NBA players who were on Team USA last summer in the Tournament of the Americas, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, were promised they would be on the Sydney Olympic squad if they gave up a big chunk of their summer to play in the qualifying tournament. Had it not been for the labor lockout of two summers ago, the U.S. would have won the World Championships in Athens in the summer of 1998 and not had to qualify for Sydney in the Tournament of the Americas, and the selection process would not have been limited to the final three roster spots. Now you know, which probably doesn't make you any happier that neither Bryant nor Carter will be providing some Olympic moments in September. All that JazzHave you noticed which team is just one-half game back of the Spurs in the Midwest Division? Yep, it's the Utah Jazz, which quietly has won eight of its last 10 games, including four on the road, and is showing signs its days as a dominating Western Conference team didn't end with the arrival of 2000. Facts are facts, and Karl Malone and Jeff Hornacek both have gotten to be 36 years old, which makes them one year younger than John Stockton, who's 37. It was easy early this season to write off the Jazz as old and in the way, especially when they got off to a slower start this season than they usually experience. Here is what is evident after the Jazz played just one game of the 2000 portion of the 1999-2000 season: As long as none of those three players has retired, the Jazz will continue to play the most disciplined half-court offense in the league, a fact that is going to make them a contender for a home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs and very tough to beat when the playoffs finally arrive. What happened in Utah in the final decade of the 20th century was the perfect matching of coach and players. Malone and Stockton were the perfect guys to implement what, for them, was the perfect system: Jerry Sloan's disciplined, execution-oriented offense. Sloan recently won his 600th game on the Jazz bench, one of only three coaches in NBA history to win 600 with one team. The others, Red Auerbach and Red Holzman, both are in the Hall of Fame, and Sloan deserves to be there when his coaching days are over (or before, as Lenny Wilkens has been recognized while still on the Hawks' bench). Sloan, in a surprise to nobody, deflected the praise coming his way because, he said, he had great players on the floor playing for him. Malone, Stockton and Hornacek, though, had Sloan's system with which to maximize their own strengths, which were considerable. Utah clearly plays the smartest basketball in the entire NBA, which is not surprising when you check their starting lineup and see it has 60 years of NBA experience since Olden Polynice replaced Greg Ostertag at center. None of the Jazz players has lost any fire, either, and it is clear Sloan hasn't. When Nuggets coach Dan Issel got mad at him in the final minutes of Utah's 109-89 win Monday at Delta Center, accusing him of running up the score, Sloan got mad right back. In fact, there is quite a nice little feud brewing between them, Sloan responding to Issel's charge by saying that Issel should not have quit on his team in the middle of the 1994-95 season. (While both coaches did their best to defuse the situation the next day, the March 21 game between the two teams at Pepsi Center ought to be ... ahem ... interesting.) Sloan is cutting Stockton's minutes successfully this season, making sure he remains fresh for crunch time. Can Stockton still dominate from the point? Not really, unless you consider his 18 assists against Denver dominating. Can Malone still dominate from his power forward spot? Absolutely. And, as Sloan suggests, they might be able to play until they're 50 if they stay in shape and don't lose any brain cells as they age. A new Maverick in town
Since you are reading this via the Internet, you should be interested in the fact that yet another Internet pioneer has joined the NBA ownership club. Four years ago, 40-year-old Mark Cuban was just another 30-something NBA fan with a keen interest in what was happening on the Net and the guts to be part of it. Today, he is the letter-of-intent new owner of the Mavericks (those of us based in Denver wait for deals to be signed, sealed and delivered and approved by every last public official before we say a deal is complete), reportedly having pocketed about $3 billion from Yahoo!'s $6 billion purchase of his Broadcast.com. What does Cuban's purchase, for an astounding $280 million from Ross Perot Jr., mean for the Mavs? Good things, unless your last name is Nelson. Cuban is a passionate fan. He doesn't like losing. Nelson's record since taking over basketball operations in Dallas is awful. Even the Perot group had begun to balk at his plan to turn the coaching chores over to Donnie Nelson next season. Word from those familiar with the Mavs is that Nelson is in big trouble with the change. Nelson is still owed about $16 million by the Mavericks over the next four years, but Cuban just bought a house in Dallas that cost that much. That's what billionaires call pocket change. (Or the cost of a good night out on the town.) Color Nellie gone when Cuban gets final control of the team. Mike Monroe, who covers the NBA for the Denver Post, writes a Western Conference column for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him at monroe128@go.com
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