NBA

If Team USA Wins A Gold Medal, But No One Sees It, Does It Count?

So USA basketball just defeated Turkey 81-64 to win their first FIBA world championship since 1984. Kind of a big deal, right?

Not exactly. Here’s what the front page of ESPN.com looked like a few minutes ago. As you can see, the recap of the gold medal game is down there near the bottom.

The story has since gotten a headline on the right side, but still: no one cared about USA winning basketball’s equivalent to the World Cup. And there are two reasons for this.

1) Football, football, football. As you may or may not know, depending on your status as a red-blooded American, football began in earnest today. Hence the reason a 0-0 tie between the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles is the top story on the site. The people love pigskin.

2) The World Championships only matter if USA loses. This was the case in 2000 and 2006, and it caused an intense national paranoia that Europe, while we were sleeping, had surpassed us in basketball supremacy. This, of course, was not true, as our domination at the Beijing Olympics proved.

So when faced with football’s first day back in school, and no “USA Basketball is dead!” rallying cry, the main takeaway from this tournament is: Kevin Durant, who scored 28 in the championship game, might one day be a top 5 all-time scorer in the NBA.

And it’s happening while no one is paying attention. Which is probably the way Durant prefers it, anyway.