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马刺中文论坛 » 环球刺讯 » The home team -- of Argentina

 
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 2008-08-01 18:07  #1
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The home team -- of Argentina

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Argentina_Olympic_basketball_team_has_Spurs_look.html

David King - Express-News

The life of the typical NBA player is sheltered.

On road trips, he flies on chartered jets and is shuttled on chartered buses to the hotel, into the arena, then back to the plane.

At home games, his car is parked in a restricted lot. His public appearances are carefully scheduled, his exposure to the media metered out in slivers of sound bites.

For some, it’s an ideal life: It allows an unprecedented focus on practices and on the games. It’s a regular schedule. It’s isolated.

It’s exactly the opposite of the Olympics, where athletes from archers to wrestlers live, eat and socialize in the same village; where games can begin anytime between noon and 10 p.m.; where practice time is limited and distractions can number in the dozx ens.

The Games, as the Spurs’ Tim Duncan can attest after a miserable time at the 2004 Olympics, aren’t for everyone.

But for Manu Ginobili and Fabricio Oberto, they wouldn’t miss them for anything.

“Playing for your national team, in such a meaningful environment, is always a great experience,” Ginobili said in an e-mail from his home in Argentina.

It doesn’t hurt to be the defending gold medalist, either.

No surprises

Only a handful of members of Argentina’s basketball team went home after winning the men’s basketball tournament in Athens, the country’s first gold medal in any sport since the 1952 Games. Most went on to their teams in Europe.

The four who did go home — including the two members of the Spurs — discovered the soccer-mad country had been following their adventures in Greece, which began when Ginobili hit a falling-down, off-balance, bank-shot 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat Serbia and Montenegro in the team’s first game.

Argentina went on to beat the United States in the semifinals, then rout Italy for the gold medal.

“People got very excited and loved watching us,” Ginobili said. “We had a lot of media coverage, for being a non-soccer team.” The gold medal also earned the Argentines some respect from their peers.

“A lot of the players in the NBA told me our team played the best basketball they had ever seen,” Oberto told the Diario Hoy newspaper in La Plata, Argentina. “That made me very proud, to be part of the team.”

But winning the gold medal also means the team won’t be sneaking up on anyone in Beijing. Spain is the defending world champion, and the United States has focused its efforts and put together a balanced team that may not suffer the same kind of breakdowns that plagued it in Athens.

“There’s no surprise factor this time,” Oberto said at a news conference in Buenos Aires earlier this summer. “We’re up against the wall, because everyone knows they’re playing against the Olympic champion.

“You can’t just show off your gold medal and expect to win.”

The injury

Argentina’s basketball fans also will have to worry about the country’s most-famous ankle, Ginobili’s left one. He jammed it during the NBA playoffs, and the injury put his participation in the Olympics in doubt.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich expressed his concerns publicly, discouraging Ginobili from playing.

Ginobili returned to San Antonio for an MRI on it in early July, and the team sent a trainer to Argentina to track his progress.

And there were detailed daily updates on his condition in the Argentine media — “Ginobili ran and jumped today,” one noted — right up to July 17, when the national team was announced.

Ginobili, of course, was on it. The MVP of the 2004 Games and the designated flag bearer for Argentina in the opening ceremonies said he’ll be ready for the team’s opener, Aug. 10 against Lithuania.

“Representing your country in such an event is a great adventure,” he said. “Sharing the same place with the best athletes of our country and the world makes it different than any other competition around.”

Argentina’s basketball fans still have to worry; the team’s doctor said July 21 that the pain and swelling could return at any time and knock him out of the Games. Ginobili will play sparingly in the exhibitions leading up to the Olympics and continue with physical therapy.

Group play

Basketball competition at the Olympics begins with five pool-play games, with four of the six teams in each pool advancing to the quarterfinals. Records in pool play determine seedings in the quarterfinals.

“Our group at the Games is very tough,” Oberto said in Diario Hoy. “There’s no margin for error.”

More than likely, Argentina needs to finish first or second in Group A, which also includes Croatia, Iran, Russia and Australia, to avoid Spain and the United States, which are both in Group B, in the quarterfinals.

After his experience in Athens, though, Ginobili doesn’t care which team Argentina plays — as long as the last game is for the gold medal.

“I’d love to play the Olympic final again, and it doesn’t matter against who,” he said. “It’s just so difficult to make it that you just want to be there.”

That atmosphere at the Games has its appeal as well: Fourteen days of living large amid all kinds of athletes, playing in front of a worldwide audience while wearing the national colors.

“NBA players are usually spoiled with the way everybody treats us,” Ginobili said. “Over there you feel, at least for a couple weeks, like an amateur player again.

“You also know that there are 40 million people or more, cheering and wishing you the best every game. It’s not bad at all.”
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