World's leading nations threaten U.S. and their basketball dynasty.

Born in Massachusetts, U.S. in 1891, basketball has rapidly spread worldwide, and for more than a century it has been led by the U.S.
This structure, however, has been changing recently.

In the 1992 Olympics at Barcelona, the U.S. formed a national team consisting of top super star players of the NBA, the world's premier league of basketball, and won the gold medal, showing overwhelming strength. They fought for their honour as a team representing the home country of basketball and proved their true strength. The NBA exploded in popularity around the world and started to attract each nation's top players along which enhanced their policy of internationalization. Ironically this phenomenon resulted in the other countries raising their playing level and thus, the gap between the U.S. and the world has been closing.

Finally, the day the U.S. team lost has come. In 2002 FIBA World Championship, after suffering a historical defeat against Argentina in the preliminary round, they lost the semi-finals against Yugoslavia, and were even dishonoured by losing the consolation final against Spain. The final was a struggle between Yugoslavia and Argentina, both of which are the teams that defeated the U.S. After a seesaw match that went into overtime, the Yugoslavian team comprised of five NBA players won the championship. Germany won the bronze medal, and New Zealand finished in 4th. NBA star players participated (NBA players made up the best 5 of the all tournament team) in the FIBA World Championship in 2002 from around the world, proving the emergence of new basketball nations outside the U.S.

2002 - INDIANAPOLIS, USA
1. Serbia & Montenegro
2. Argentina
3. Germany

The 2002 FIBA World Championship will go down in history as the first to take place in the homeland of basketball and one of the most exciting FIBA competitions ever. Before the start of the competition most experts agreed that more than half of the competing teams could make the semi-finals, and lip service was paid to the notion that the USA could not count on a gold medal. However, the USA was still the runaway favourite for the title and after all they couldn't lose on home soil, could they?

The question was answered when USA played Argentina in the Eighth Final Round and lost with 87 - 80. This loss meant the end of USA's 58 - 0 running streak until that game in FIBA competition and forced the 2000 Olympic Champion to play reigning FIBA World Champion Serbia and Montenegro in the Quarter Finals. After losing against the Serbs with 78 - 81, it was clear that the USA was out of the medals for the first time since using NBA players.

In the gold medal game Serbia & Montenegro was able to repeat their 1998 triumph in a overtime thriller against Argentina (84 - 77) whilst Germany secured against New Zealand (117 - 94) a bronze medal and their first medal in the FIBA World Championships.

Dirk Nowitzki from Germany was voted MVP of the championship with Manu Ginobili (ARG), Yao Ming (CHN), Pero Cameron (NZL) and Dejan Bodiroga (SCG) joining him in the All Star Five.

1998 - ATHENS, GREECE
1. Yugoslavia
2. Russia
3. United States of America

The best players in the USA refused to participate at this championship owing to the NBA lock-out, and so the Dream Team, which had gone to Toronto now stayed away from Athens. This was a hard blow for the popular success of the competition. The Palais des Sports in Maroussi, which could hold up to 18,000 spectators, saw no more than just a few thousand turn up for the first game, which the Americans won over the Brazilians (83-59) nevertheless. And if an NBA star was indeed present at the foot of the Acropolis, it was only because the great Hakeem Olajuwon had travelled to Greece to support his home team, Nigeria.

But Olajuwon's presence did not prevent the Africans from coming last in the classification and, what is more, from being deprived of one of their players, Julius Nwosu, who was suspended following a doping control which proved positive for ephedrine. Furthermore, FIBA had taken the decision to sanction the use of cannabis in all their competitions.

With the USA not having sent its best players, there had never been so many candidates for the medals, especially since Yugoslavia had returned to the competition. From this point on though, their team would be made up entirely of players from Serbia and Montenegro.

The games involving potential medal winners were most often evenly-matched and gave rise to several surprises. Thus, with twenty-nine points from Arturas Karnishovas, Lithuania led Uncle Sam's nephews a merry dance (84-82) and it was only after extra time that Yugoslavia beat Russia (82-74) and Spain got the upper hand over Argentina (68-67). Spain was still to give the USA a hard time (73-75) and Yugoslavia would succumb to Italy by one point (60-61).

Increased discipline leading to the elimination of Australia (96-78) in the Quarter-Finals, the USA once again got the upper hand over Italy (80-77) but had to give up the title in the Semi-Finals to a Russian team led by the excellent Sergei Babkov (30 pts.).

For its part, Yugoslavia, in the other Semi-Final game, was disturbed by Greece taking control for some thirty minutes, notably owing to the superior height of its players Jakovos Tsakalidis (2. 17m), Panagiotis Fassoulas (2. 13m) and Efthymios Rentzias (2. 12m) only to then collapse under the assaults of Bodiroga and his partners.

Finally, Yugoslavia confirmed its superiority in Europe in the Final against Russia where the actions of the "young guard" Zeljko Rebraca, and Dejan Bodiroga who was voted the tournament's MVP, made it possible to forget about the absence of Predrag Danilovic, Vlade Divac and Zoran Savic and to take home its fourth world title for Yugoslavia.

1994 - TORONTO, HAMILTON, CANADA
1. United States of America
2. Russia
3. Croatia

This championship was like no other. Firstly because it was played in Toronto's monumental Skydome, usually home to baseball, with a capacity of up to 70,000 people. But, having been converted for the occasion, it would actually register a crowd of 32,616 spectators on the final evening: a World Championship record.

Different also through the presence of a USA team which, with its NBA superstars Alonzo Mourning, Dominique Wilkins, Dan Majerle, Reggie Miller, Mark Price and even Shaquille O'Neal, was well deserving of its title of "Dream Team II" and justified it by following in the footsteps of Michael Jordan's "Dream Team I" which had walked away with the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Barcelona two years previously.

Lastly, with acrobats and cheerleaders from Charlotte and Phoenix livening up the time-outs, the atmosphere was reminiscent of major NBA events, the staff of which, it has to be said, had been made available and were present in force helping FIBA to organise this 12th World Championship.

The wind of change had also blown through the participating teams. Thus, the USSR, which had been dismantled, had made way for Russia, and Yugoslavia, submitted to a UN embargo, was not admitted to Toronto, where Croatia appeared at a World Championship under its own flag for the first time.

The "Dream Team II", following some teething troubles on the first day when the Spaniards managed to stand up to them (115-100), radiated a superiority which even became crushing in the Final where the Russians found themselves lagging behind by 46 points (137-91). There were, however, mitigating circumstances for the latter team, which had, on the previous day, had to fight a merciless battle against the Croatians with Toni Kukoc and Dino Radja to assure themselves of a place in the Final (66-64).

In the definitive fight for the title, the exploits of Sergei Babkov, Mikhail Mikhailov and Sergei Bazarevich were not enough to counteract the skills of Dominique Wilkins, Alonzo Mourning and Shawn Kemp and especially not sufficient to prevent the giant Shaquille O'Neal from enforcing his own law under the two baskets.

Europe managed to place three teams behind the invincible "Dream Team II" since, apart from Russia (silver) and Croatia (bronze), Greece had enjoyed its best championship ever with victories over Canada and China.

Individually, Bazarevich (Russia), Miller and Kemp (USA), Radja (Croatia) and the MVP Shaquille O'Neal made up the five "All Stars".


FIBA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS MEDALS' TABLE 1950-1998
COUNTRY GOLD SILVER BRONZE TOTAL

USA 3 3 3 9
Soviet Union 3 3 2 8
Yugoslavia 3 3 2 8
Brazil 2 2 2 6
Russia 0 2 0 2
Chile 0 0 2 2
Argentina 1 1 0 2
Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) 2 0 0 2
Croatia 0 0 1 1
Philippines 0 0 1 1
Germany 0 0 1 1