US hoops team wearies of worries about height

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Don’t call them Shorty.

The U.S. men are tired of hearing about their Olympic basketball team’s size problem. Instead of being called small, they’d prefer to be known as versatile, quick, athletic, or something else that recognizes their strengths and not their, uh, shortcomings.

“Really it’s kind of boring to keep answering the question of what are you going to do with the bigs,” U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski said Sunday. “Like, this is who we have. Why don’t we talk about what we’re going to do with what we have, than talk about what we don’t have? I don’t really understand how that’s productive. So I’m trying to dismiss that and concentrate on what we’re doing.”

The U.S. is down to just Tyson Chandler as the lone natural center on the roster. Dwight Howard is out after back surgery, and big man options such as Chris Bosh and Blake Griffin later joined him on the sidelines.

Yes, the Americans realize that could put them at a disadvantage against the likes of Spain or Brazil, who they will face Monday in an exhibition game.

But they’d also like to know what team is supposed to defend a front line of LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony?

“Look, maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so,” USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said. “I’ll take versatility and athleticism and speed and quickness. That beats size all day long, because size alone can’t get it done.”

If he was going to be wrong, it would seem to be against a team such as Brazil, which has loads of NBA size up front with Nene of the Washington Wizards, Cleveland’s Anderson Varejao and San Antonio’s Tiago Splitter on the roster.

The Americans then travel to Europe and play tuneup games in Barcelona against Argentina and the Spaniards, who have NBA stars Pau and Marc Gasol, and Serge Ibaka along their front line.

Brazil came closest to beating a similarly sized U.S. team two years ago at the world basketball championship, falling by two points when Leandro Barbosa’s shot bounced off the rim at the buzzer.

“We wanted as good a competition as we could get during our pregames and with Brazil because of their front line and their experience and they’re a good team, Argentina and Spain, three out of the five are really good tests for us,” Colangelo said. “So we’re very aware of what they have and it’ll be a challenge and we’ll learn a lot from that game, no question about it.”