By Michael Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 7, 2007; E01
It was blamed for Dwyane Wade's left wrist injury, Chris Bosh's bruised left knee, Chris Paul's severe ankle sprain, Brad Miller's left foot injury, LeBron James's sore toe and the end of Joe Johnson's NBA-leading iron-man streak.
And now, some may throw in the left knee injury the Washington Wizards' Antawn Jamison suffered on Jan. 30 as the latest evidence. The supposed cause of all of these maladies? Participation on the U.S. men's national team last summer.
There is no direct correlation between playing international basketball in the summer and regular season NBA injuries -- "It's kind of a thing of chance. Guys get hurt," said Los Angeles Clippers forward and U.S. team member Elton Brand -- but several participants from the team that finished third at the FIBA World Championship in Japan last summer have admitted that the commitment has made this season more of a grind.
Wade, James and Jamison have complained of fatigue, and others such as Chicago Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich got off to noticeably sluggish starts this season. When observers noticed a decline in Brand's production -- his scoring has dipped by almost four points this season -- they immediately pointed to his summer stint with Team USA. "That's what everyone is saying because my point production is down," Brand said. "I don't want to."
Not every player is struggling as a result of playing last summer. The Denver Nuggets' Carmelo Anthony is leading the league in scoring at 31 points per game despite serving a 15-game suspension. Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard is having a breakout season and ranks third in the league in rebounding, and Houston forward Shane Battier is producing at a similar rate as last season, as was Jamison.
Most of the participants invited last summer played a full regular season and playoffs, then followed that with an intense two-week training session in Las Vegas, a three-week exhibition throughout China and South Korea and the two-week world championship tournament in Japan, which concluded in early September.
"I'm not going to lie, it affected me," Bosh said. "It's going to affect the body because I'm not used to playing like that all summer, and at that intensity. I'm not going to use it as an excuse. Yeah, sometimes I was tired. I had a little injury that came out of nowhere, but I don't know if that was the cause of it."
With less than a month to rest and recuperate for training camp, James said players have to consider the physical toll of the summer schedule. "I think it would make guys sit back and think about it a little bit," James said recently, regarding players participating this summer. "You got guys like myself and Dwyane and Melo who have played pretty much every year since 2003, all offseason then all season long. As far as fatigue, you always want a little rest. None of us are breaking down, mentally or physically. You have to think about it. And you have to do what's best for your body at the end of the day."
Miller, who played limited time in the world championship and is enduring a sub-par regular season with the Sacramento Kings, has already backed out of the FIBA Americas Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Las Vegas from Aug. 22 to Sept. 2. Another member of last summer's 12-man squad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "a lot of guys" from that team will seriously consider taking a pass on the honor of representing the country this summer.
"When the year ends, that's something everybody is going to talk about: Who's going to go? Who's not going to go?" said Los Angeles Lakers forward Lamar Odom, who plans to be in Las Vegas for training camp after missing last summer's tournament following the death of his son.
Before his knee injury, Jamison said that the first two months of the season felt like the final months of the season, adding, "You go through those moments of hitting the wall." But he said he didn't expect many more players to back out this summer.
"This year it's different. You're not traveling that much. You're in Vegas the whole time," Jamison said. The travel last summer "was ridiculous. You was playing ball but you couldn't rest, because you was always traveling."
Before the 2004 Olympics in Greece, USA Basketball lost many members of the squad that won the qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico. Player after player backed out until Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan were the only ones remaining. The selection committee was forced to scramble for replacements at the last minute, and the team failed to win a gold medal for the first time since NBA players were allowed to compete in international competitions.
Jerry Colangelo, managing director of the U.S. men's national team program, said he asked the 23-man unit to make a three-year commitment last year with the expectation that the 12-man roster selected for the world championship would likely change from year to year. Players could choose not to participate because of injuries or other obligations. Whether the team that competes in Las Vegas looks significantly different from last summer's "remains to be seen," Colangelo said.
Odom and Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant, Boston's Paul Pierce, Milwaukee's Michael Redd, Detroit's Chauncey Billups, and the Phoenix Suns' Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion were among the players who couldn't participate last summer for various reasons. "Chances are, if everyone would've been healthy and available, the team would've looked a little different than it did," Colangelo said in a telephone interview late last month. "The basis on which everyone bought in was that we were going to pick a national team and from that national team, we were going to select those to represent us in the world championships. It's a three-year commitment and we believed there would be some changes from the world championships to the Olympics, but the core players would certainly stay together. We might make a few deletions and additions, just to maintain flexibility, but nothing has changed."
Going down the list of players who were unable to play last summer, Brand smiled and said, "They owe us."
Redd got married last summer but plans on playing in Las Vegas. He said he has kept track of the players who have suffered through injuries or exhaustion this season. "It's a challenge, but it's a commitment that we all accepted, obviously," Redd said. "Absolutely it's a concern, because your first obligation is to your organization."
The Memphis Grizzlies (12-37) have the league's worst record, partly because star forward Pau Gasol missed the first 22 games of the season after fracturing his left foot in the semifinals of the world championship while playing for gold medal-winning Spain. The Grizzlies' slide has contributed to the firing of coach Mike Fratello and recently led Gasol to ask for a trade.
Gasol was asked how this season would have been different if he hadn't been injured playing for his country. "I think that if that it didn't happen, there is no way you would know," Gasol said. "If I didn't break my foot in the world championships, then I played the final and everything was wonderful, I could've broken my foot the second game of the year and I would've been out almost a whole year and then what? It's always easy to blame it, playing with the national team."
"The summer was very rigorous, very tough," Paul said in a telephone interview last week. "A lot of people draw conclusions about being tired and how guys are doing in the season, but during the summer, that's representing your country, that's an honor and a privilege."
The Hornets point guard plans to participate in Las Vegas, but he said he will think about it again as summer nears. "The Olympics only comes around once every four years, but it will be interesting to see how guys approach the summer."
