COMMENTARY

Forget the 2002 World Championship in Indianapolis, where we lost three of our last four games and finished sixth.

Forget the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, where we lost to Puerto Rico, Lithuania and Argentina and settled for bronze.

Forget all those international tournaments in which the United States, since winning the gold medal at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, didn't do what it's supposed to do to the rest of the world on a basketball court.

Because, well, they proved nothing.

Except this: The other basketball-playing countries around the globe have closed the gap, so much so that we no longer can just hand anybody a red-white- and-blue uniform and expect Team USA to win.

The rest of the world has gotten better, putting more players in the NBA than ever. We're not as good as we used to be.

Certainly, we're not as fundamentally sound as we should be.

And, as a result, we haven't overwhelmed opponents the way we did during our glory days, when the U.S. was teaching everyone else how to play the game. But let there be no doubt: Our best is still better than anybody else's best.

Way better.

Nobody - not anyone in Europe, not anyone in South America, not anyone anywhere - can beat us at our best. When we put together our best team with our best coaches, we're too talented, too athletic, too tough to beat.

That's being proved now in Las Vegas, at the FIBA Americas Championship, where the first real "Dream Team" since the 1990s is sending an unmistakable message to the rest of the basketball world.

The USA is back.

The original "Dream Team," led by Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, turned the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona into an international basketball clinic and rolled to the gold medal, dominating every opponent along the way. It was, without question, the greatest collection of basketball players in the game's history.

But this group in Las Vegas is a close second. And it has a chance to be every bit as good.

Jason Kidd and Chauncey Billups at the point. Kobe Bryant at shooting guard. LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony at forward. Dwight Howard and Amare Stoudemire at center.

Have you seen these guys play? Have you seen the way they play together? They're playing the game the way it's supposed to be played - hard, smart, unselfishly - the way it was played by Jordan and Johnson and Bird back in 1992.

Give credit to the coaching staff, led by Duke's Mike

Krzyzewski, who would be successful at any level. But also credit the players, most of them stars who have put aside their egos.

In fact, Bryant went to

Krzyzewski when the team's training camp opened and told him he wanted to cover the opponent's best player.

Then there's Kidd, who makes everyone a better player.

And James, who has the ability to take over games but has settled for doing whatever's necessary to win. And Anthony, who is playing bigger and tougher than at any time in his career. And Howard, who, at age 21, is a budding superstar.

This team is so good that 2006 NBA Finals MVP Dwyane Wade, even if he were healthy, couldn't crack the starting five. And neither Tim Duncan nor Shaquille O'Neal are on the roster.

So forget the failures of 2002 and 2004. We're sending our best to Beijing next summer. And our best is better than everybody's else's best.

Way better.

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