(August 17)

(The author, correspondent fromLos Angeles Times)

When the US played China with two presidents attending and what was assumed to be the biggest TV audience for any basketball game in history watching, a journalist asked Coach Mike Krzyzewski if this wasn't "the mother of all games?"

Unfortunately, this medal round looks like it's going to be missing something important, as far as suspense over the eventual winner goes.

This US team is looking like the old US teams, before international players learned to dribble with both hands. In other words, we're going w-a-y back to the days of Bill Russell (1956, Melbourne), Jerry West and Oscar Robertson (1960, Rome) and Bob Knight (1984, Los Angeles.)

Since Knight's team ran off all comers—unfortunately for Bob and basketball fans everywhere, the USSR boycott, tit for tat after the US boycott in 1980, cost us a chance to see the Americans play the mighty Soviets—there has only been one dominating US team.

That would be, of course, the one and only Dream Team at Barcelona in 1992.

It has taken eight years of getting batted around—the US lost seven games in the last three world competitions—to rouse the sleeping giant but it's awake.

There are no more guarantees in international competition but this team, committed as few US teams have ever been, playing so hard on defense that anything they do on offense is like a bonus, is going to be really hard to beat.

Counting exhibitions, so far the Americans have beaten "leading contenders" Spain by 37, Lithuania by 36 and Greece by 23.

The most exciting thing in the medal round will be seeing China in it for the first time, which will happen unless Germany beats the US Monday night.

In other words, it's safe to party.

Chinese basketball striker Yao Ming (C) celebrates with team-mates after winning a preliminary round group A basketball match of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games against Germany at the Olympic basketball Arena in Beijing on August 16, 2008. [Agencies]

China could even medal although it would have to beat some teams rated higher (Argentina, Spain, Lithuania, Greece, Croatia and the US, just to name six.)

OK, so China is a real long shot. On the other hand, the Chinese should be there and, as anyone who saw them leading Spain by 14 in the fourth quarter knows, they're no day at the beach (US slang for a pushover.)

If it's not yet China's time in basketball, this is China's moment with the games in Beijing and Yao Ming in what may be his farewell performance for the national team.

Watching Yao gamely get to his feet after falling down several times a game, it seems clear his left foot, in which he suffered a stress fracture last season in Houston, isn't fully healed.

Nor is it a good idea for someone who weighs 310 pounds to play 100 NBA games and then go six more weeks with the national team during the summer. If China doesn't want to see Yao's brilliant career wind down prematurely, it's going to have to reconcile itself to going on without him.

Like any promising young program, China's lacks depth at the elite class. Yi Jianlian is still a prospect as far as the elite class goes so the next four years before the next Olympiad are going to be very interesting.

Four years ago in Athens, LeBron James, the most ballyhooed high school player in basketball history, barely played. Two years later in the World Championships in Saitama, Japan, he was the team's leader at 22 but wasn't ready for it.

He didn't try to defend as he does now. If he had natural leadership ability, he could also be difficult, treating staffers like servants.