In defeat, Iverson sounds like a winner

ATHENS, Greece - Maybe it was the Yankee cap that made Allen Iverson sound like the ultimate winner in Olympic defeat, the cap that covered his white do-rag and made him sound smarter and more noble than his old friend, Larry Brown, had sounded across three sorry weeks.

But there he was in the flesh, Mr. Practice, We're Talking About Practice. That was him, captain of the semifinal loser to Argentina, captain of the first American basketball team with NBA players to fail to win the gold.

Iverson was talking about duty and honor and respect some 15 minutes after the United States had lost to Argentina, 89-81, and it was my pleasure to sit there and just listen to him.

"If we're not fighting for a gold medal,'' Iverson said of Saturday night's bronze-medal game with Lithuania, "we have to understand that we still have to represent our country. ... It's still an honor to be able to come over here and represent your country.''

He was just warming up. Iverson was just digging into his sermon for every multimillionaire NBA no-show to hear, and he would save a lesson or three for the man sitting to his left, Brown, who lowered his chin and studied his clenched hands while the kid taught him all about excuses, and how a responsible coach or athlete should never make them.

To the Shaqs and Garnetts and T-Macs and Ray Allens who had better things to do than protect their homegrown game, Iverson said: "They have to understand that, first and foremost, it's an honor to be selected on this team. It's something that you should cherish for the rest of your life, and honestly, it's something I will cherish without winning the gold medal. "I feel good about taking part in something like this. I feel like a special basketball player to be selected to a team like this.''

To his former coach in Philly, Brown, who complained about the only-in-America rush job needed to field an Olympic team when he wasn't busy ripping his players and the USA Basketball selection committee that picked them, Iverson said: "I don't want to make (the rush job) an excuse. I think the time that we had, it was already known that that's how much time we were going to have. And we had to understand from the first day that that was the amount of time we had to prepare.''

Who was the Gen X player? Who was the old school coach? In the end, Iverson and Brown had traded places.

Iverson was the one who remained accountable, who refused to hide the way co-captain Tim Duncan did, and who had willingly accepted his role as leader of an NBA all-star team with no pure playmaker, no pure shooter, and no pure plan as it fast-breaked its way into a no-win situation.

Larry Brown? With a tirade in Sydney and a timeout in Athens, he created the very international incidents Iverson was supposed to deliver on a silver (medal) platter. Brown also distanced himself from the growing possibility of defeat by criticizing his fundamentally flawed roster and the executives who assembled it.

Even David Stern, Iverson's worst nightmare, blew the whistle on Brown in a news conference called at halftime, when it was already clear that Manu Ginobili and countrymen were going to shoot, pick and pass the Americans into oblivion.

"This was a team that was put together by everyone,'' Stern said, "including the coaching staff.''

Ouch.

"And this is a great team, so I don't buy the, 'Well, I'd like to have this, I'd like to have that.' ... It's not about who didn't come. I'll tell you what, we're all in sports. You take your team to the gym and you play what you've got and then you either win or you lose. And this whining and carping is not fair to the young men ... who are representing their country admirably and well.''

Stern tried to direct some of his ire at the assembled media, but make no mistake: This was his way to shut Brown down.

It's too bad it came to this, for these NBA stars played hard and played fair. If someone out there wrote them up as if they were the Animal House hockey bums from Nagano, then that someone perpetrated a fraud.

Subtract Carmelo Anthony's body language from the tournament, and you had a team that wasn't hard to like. Lamar Odom played sick. LeBron James didn't whine about minutes. Dwyane Wade played some serious defense. Shawn Marion, Richard Jefferson and Carlos Boozer did their best to overcome their considerable weaknesses.

Stephon Marbury tried to be a playmaker. His backcourt partner, Iverson, embraced his role as front man even though every American newspaper and TV outlet was fond of attaching his tattooed, cornrowed, counterculture posture to the idea that this Olympic team was doomed to fail.

"I'm very proud of these young Americans,'' Stern said.

This was his idea, after all, back in 1992. The Dream Team of Magic, Michael and Bird was an unstoppable force, a machine built to re-establish American dominance after the college kids lost in Seoul, and built to market the NBA brand, of course.

The Dream Team advanced both objectives, and one more: "The popularity of the sport really cascaded (globally) in a way that youngsters began dribbling the ball rather than kicking it.''

So that's why the Argentines were dancing at midcourt last night, waving their arms and the jerseys they'd ripped from their backs, this while the Americans trudged toward the tunnel under a dismissive round of jeers. The same Argentines who had defeated George Karl's all-stars at the world championships two years back had made 11 of 22 three-pointers, while the Americans managed a mere 3 of 11.

Duncan played 19 minutes and fouled out again on some dreadful calls ("You're a disgrace to the game,'' Duncan told an official after his fourth foul). But even Brown conceded, "I don't know if we would've beaten them if Timmy played 40 minutes.''

FIBA rules, NBA rules, it didn't matter. The Argentines had one guy who looked like Fabio, and other guys who couldn't cut it in the CBA, but they played the cut, drive and kick game that dominates the international landscape, a game the Americans don't know.

"We've got to really think about the people that we put on a team,'' Brown said in his parting shot at the selection committee that had solicited his opinion on every single team member.

So Iverson was left to clean up the mess. Born to a 15-year-old woman who raised him in abject poverty, Iverson offered no excuses, no nothing but respect for a country that gave him a shot.

"You honestly get a chance to represent your country,'' he said, "and what is better than that? Anybody that grew up in the U.S. and is able to be a basketball player in the NBA, you understand the things your country has brought to you and done for you and your family.

"It gave you an opportunity to support your family and be recognized as a household name. So it's an honor to be able to do something like that. I would advise anybody selected to a team like this to take your honor and cherish it.''

With that, Allen Iverson fixed his Yankee cap and limped away from the podium. This was one Olympic loser who deserved to wear gold.