RIO DE JANEIRO — Spain, the great hope to challenge Team USA in Olympic basketball, stumbled badly on Sunday night in its opening game of the tournament, losing to Croatia. Spain led the entire game, and looked like they would cruise to a victory, until they fell apart late and ended up losing 72-70.
After a silver medal finish at the 2012 games, Spain looked like one of the only teams that could challenge the United States for gold, and with this loss — to a talented but raw Croatia team — it’s looking doubtful anyone is going to pose a serious threat.
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It’s a bummer, really. Team USA was always going to get to the medal round, but Spain provided a foe that could perhaps hang with the Americans, give them a real test and push the team to actually have to play a basketball game. (Routing teams by 40 and turning it into a dunk contest is not really a basketball game.)
But as Spain showed on Sunday night, they’re not the same team they were four years ago. Or, sadly, they are the same team … just four years older. Pau Gasol is still the team’s centerpiece, and he was effective against Croatia, scoring 26 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. But at 36 years old, Gasol isn’t quite the dominant force he once was.
Ricky Rubio was ineffective, and none of the Spanish guards could hang with Bojan Bogdanovic, who dropped 23 points and got into the paint repeatedly.
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Croatia is a fine team, but Bogdanovic and 22-year-old Dario Saric aren’t going to be able to mount a serious challenge to the Americans. And if Spain is going to lose to them, that’s a bad sign.
Elsewhere, Argentina’s golden age is over, Brazil’s stars are aging, as are the big names on France. Any of those teams could get hot for a few games, and Spain is still alive in this tournament, so maybe they’ll figure it out. But it doesn’t look like any team is a real threat.
Team USA is not the Dream Team, and some of the NBA’s biggest stars are home this summer, but they’re still loaded with talent. They were always favored to win, but now, it doesn’t look like it will be much work. What a drag.