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Argentina's Golden Generation

 

In the 2004 Olympics, the US Men’s Nation Basketball team, led by players like Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan, and featuring a young Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. The US team was also coached by Larry Brown, who won the NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons in the 2003-04 season. This team was one of the favorites to win the gold medal. Despite the presence of some of the most prominent American stars, the US did not win the gold. In fact, they didn’t even make the final. They lost to the eventual winners, Argentina, in the semi-finals, 89-81. This Argentina team was one of the best in their history, filled with NBA players all throughout the roster, and led by Manu Ginóbili, a two-time NBA All-Star. The Argentinean team had more NBA players than just Ginóbili, including Luis Scola, Fabricio Oberto, Andres Nocioni, and Carlos Delfino.

Despite both teams making the knockout rounds, they did not perform well in the group stages. Both Argentina and the US won only 3 out of their 5 group games, finishing third and fourth in their groups respectively. These results were more troubling for the US, who were historically the most dominant team in the Olympics, winning gold at the last three Olympics, the first three that allowed professional players to participate. The Americans scraped through to the knockouts, and in their quarter-final match, defeated Spain 104-92, looking on track to win their 4th gold medal in as many Olympics, while Argentina barely defeated Greece 69-64.

In the semi-final game, the US were heavy favorites, but the Argentineans pulled off a shock victory, led by 29 points from Manu Ginóbili. Argentina also beat the US with teamwork, with Juan Ignacio Sanchez leading the team in assists with 7, while Lamar Odom and Iverson led the US with only 3 assists each. In the final, Argentina would handily beat Italy 84-69, while the US dispatched Lithuania 104-96 in the bronze medal game.

Argentina winning the gold medal was not a paradigm shift in the hierarchy of basketball, but an aberration in the US’ continued dominance of the sport. While the Argentinean golden generation would go on to win a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics, they would never again reach the apex that they had reached in 2004. The US would regroup in 2008 with the famous ‘Redeem Team’, and would win the gold in the next four successive Olympics. The Argentina squad of 2004 have all retired, but their accomplishments will forever be etched in the history books, as the only non-American team to win an Olympic gold since the advent of professional players in the Olympics.


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