Brief History of Men's Olympic Basketball

The U.S. Men’s Olympic basketball team won its fourth straight gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last week. They beat France 87-82 for the gold medal, avenging their opening game loss in pool play. Aside from Kevin Durant team USA didn’t have top NBA players on the squad as we’ve seen in the past. Hopefully, it is a reminder that basketball has become an international sport, and the NBA is filled with players from all over the world. The team for France had five active NBA players on it; fortunately for the U.S. team, none were among the top players in the league.

For much of its history, Team USA has been dominant. It has won a medal in all nineteen Olympic Games it has entered. Sixteen of those were gold medals, one silver and two bronze. The silver medal happened in 1972, and it was the first time the U.S. didn’t win the gold medal. It represented the first loss for the U.S. had in Olympic basketball following sixty-three straight wins. With the U.S. ahead 50-49 against the Soviet Union, the Soviets failed to score on their last possession with three seconds left to play. However, the Soviet coach claimed he had called a timeout before the two foul shots American Doug Collins made to make the score 50-49, and the clock was reset to three seconds. The Soviets inbounded the ball, and the buzzer went off after one second because the timer hadn’t been reset correctly. Again, the clock was reset, and this time the Soviets completed a pass as time expired, giving them the win over the United States 51-50.

In the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, the U.S. team, under the coaching of Dean Smith, won all seven of its games, reclaiming the gold medal. In 1980, the U.S. boycotted the games in Moscow due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1984, the U.S. again won the gold medal after winning all eight games with then top college player Michael Jordan leading the team in scoring. The 1988 team was led by future NBA Hall of Farmer David Robinson. It fell short, losing to the Soviet Union in the semi-finals an had to settle for the bronze medal. This would be the last U.S. team to have all college players.

For the 1992 Olympics, the U.S. team featured a team of NBA greats led by Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson called “The Dream Team.” All the games were blowouts, with the Croatian team coming closest, losing by thirty-two points. The average margin of victory for the Dream Team was over forty points per game. Other teams were in such awe of the U.S. team that they frequently posed for photographs with the U.S. team before the games. In 1996, the U.S. again rolled out another star-studded lineup of NBA players. Again, they won the gold medal and all their games by an average of over thirty points. The 2000 team also won the gold medal, but the games were much closer this time, and the U.S. nearly lost to Lithuania in the semi-finals. The 85-83 score was the closest they had come to defeat since 1988.

Of the twelve players selected for the 2004 games in Athens, nine withdrew. The team lost two games in pool play and was defeated in the semi-finals by Argentina. The U.S. again had to settle for the bronze medal. Since 2004 the U.S. has won the gold medal in basketball in each of the following Olympics 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2021. However, the rest of the world has caught up and features NBA players of their own. In years that we don’t send our top NBA talent, we don’t just coast through the tournament anymore.