Even Without Kevin Durant, Team USA Will Be A-OK

Like sparks through an August-dry forest floor, news of Kevin Durant's decision to not play for Team USA spread and built into a raging conflagration on #BasketballTwitter last week. Even as the press release's still-damp ink was drying, the doomsayers and rumormongers were coming out in droves from the digital woodpile that is social media. Now aside from grimacing at the base level of literacy and "thought" "exerted" by KD's haters, let's consider the ramifications of Durant's departure for himself and Team USA.

While this does seem to leave a void on Team USA's roster, let's all remember that Durant owes Team USA exactly nothing. In between leading Oklahoma City into the playoffs every season (including a run to the Finals in 2012) Durant has managed to somehow find the energy and focus to carve out his own face on the Mt Rushmore of USA basketball. In 2010, after a first-round, six-game exit to the Lakers in the playoffs, Durant donned the stars and stripes in Turkey on his way to winning tournament MVP honors and leading the US to its first FIBA World Championship in over 15 years. For an international encore, all Durant did was adapt his game from being the primary scorer/Swiss Army Knife of the 2010 squad, to becoming a more well-rounded and team-centric player in the multi-headed system of destruction that was Team USA at the London Olympics in 2012. That he did all of this with the casual aplomb and grace of a seasoned rancher helping a calf be birthed is testament to his obvious strengths as a basketball player.

But this casual dominance deserves praise. Durant has happily and willfully met the bell two times for his country. And even if he never had, he would still not owe a single thing to anyone. Far too often the media, the consumers of media, and the players themselves all fall prey to the bunk notion that it's an "Honor" and "Obligation" to one's country to play an extra [x amount of games] and to burn through so many hours of press appearances, sponsorship appearances and, oh, yes, practices for the "Right" to play for your country. Which, OK, Pollyanna, let me sell you this bridge in Brooklyn while we're at it. International athletic competition is not military service, it is not volunteering time to a disaster-stricken corner of the world—it is nothing more than an extension of sports entertainment. If you're a fencer and you've been training your whole life for this one shot and you have Eminimen's "Lose Yourself" on your iPod to get hyped before the prelims at Worlds or the Olympics, fine. But if you're Kevin Durant cranking "Freedom '90!" by George Michael and recognizing that you don't have to do this dog and pony show? That's fine, too. He owes the US nothing. He never did and especially not after running the gauntlet twice in four years.

But how on earth will poor, depleted, helpless, defenseless Team USA compete, let alone win the FIBA World Cup without Kevin Durant, or Kevin Love, or Paul George, or Blake Griffin? Gee, I don't know, dear reader. I just don't know how a Goliath such as the United States of America, with all of its world-class players, coaching, and facilities will ever be able to replace four great players with another almost-as-great four players. When the United States players, coaches, or media say things such as "The rest of the world has caught up," or "We've gotta just take it one game at a time," that's essentially the same lip service you would hear from Joachim Löw or any other FIFA-dominant national team coach or player. In world basketball the gap is even wider than it is between the haves and the have nots of FIFA. In world basketball there is one have (the USA) and then there is everyone else. And no one at all on the world's stage views Team USA as a David save for the US media. Even with Blake backflipping his way out of this, with Love staying at home "because trade," even with George's fracture, with Durant's fatigue, no one team has the depth or quality of Team USA. What's that? Spain has Marc and Pau Gasol and Serge Ibaka? Oh, and they have Ricky Rubio and Jose Calderon? Gosh, I just don't know how NBA players like Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins, Andre Drummond, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, or whoever is selected to Team USA's final roster will handle a roster with some NBA talent. And poor, flustered Mike Krzyzewski will probably just throw up his hands and look over at Tom Thibodeau and say "Welp. It was nice while it lasted."

Maybe, yes, the gap between the United States and the rest of the world has gradually shrank over time. Maybe Team USA hit a nadir in the early 2000s when in consecutive Worlds and Olympics the world saw Goliath stagger to sixth- and third-place finishes, respectively. Maybe the kinks still weren't ironed out in time for the 2006 Worlds. But lo and behold, since 2004, Team USA and Jerry Colangelo have been building a readymade pipeline of NBA talent that cultivates and ferments much like other national teams had been doing for years. The continuity, or, god, if you must, "passing of the torch" from the 2008 Redeem Team to the Durantula and Lamar Odom-led 2010 team to the 2012 Flying Viking Warship squad has been in place for nearly a decade now.

And all while that self-improving, Borg-esque assimilation of other schools of national-team-building has been going on, so, too, has this exhausting trope of "how will poor depleted America handle international rules and a team of some NBA talent" been rolled out every few years. See: 2010 when a then-untested Kevin Durant, et al was feared at being disadvantaged because "No Kobe or LeBron." Or, see: 2008 "Can USA get back on top after sucking?" then mowed through the international field. It's fine for the US media to roll it out, to troll/pander to its collective audience, but it's equally important to know that the rest of the world always sees the US as the ones with the target on its back. They all want to make the gods bleed and for this "depleted" Team USA to do anything, or to expect anything but competing and earning a World championship is just as dangerous as going in and thinking that they just need to be waiting at the medal podium for The Star Spangled Banner to play. Please don't confuse this as nationalism or jingoism or optimism, it's just that, well, actually, "America, FUCK YEAH!" The United States has the depth of roster, talent, and coaching staff that the rest of the world, on an annual basis, would drool over. Do not forget, this team is not playing with house money, it is the house.

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