Feats of Grace and Grit; Argentina Wins One for the Rest
As the final seconds wound down, the celebrating Argentine players began to seek out one another, make wide-eyed contact and mouth the words: 'Do you believe it? Do you believe it?'
Did they believe in miracles? They didn't have to because their convincing victory over a lackluster and fundamentals-challenged United States team last summer at the world basketball championships in Indianapolis was no miracle. It was inevitable that the world would defeat a team of N.B.A. players and close the yawning talent gap that had existed since 1992, when Commissioner David Stern of the N.B.A. sent the basketball ambassadors otherwise known as the Dream Team to the Barcelona Olympics.
Over a startlingly short decade in the international arena, supremacy gave way to superiority and then to survival and finally submission. The United States team, coached by George Karl, lost twice more in Indianapolis -- to Yugoslavia and to Spain -- but Argentina will always have bragging rights as the country that chopped the superpower of Kareem and Wilt, of Magic and Michael, symbolically down to the size of mortal men.
HARVEY ARATON