In the darkest era, I won only once in the 5th competition, lost all the World Championships, and finally forced the Dream Eighth Team!

Although basketball in various countries has made great progress in recent years, the gap with the US team is getting smaller and smaller. Even the US team has not been able to win the World Cup championship in the past 10 years, it has to be said that they are still dominant in the Olympics. From 2008 to 2024, in a total of 5 Olympic Games, they all won gold medals and still dominate the Olympic stadium. And compared with the past, this is far called a dark era. You should know that in the 10 years between 1998 and 2008, the American men's basketball team encountered huge difficulties. They participated in the World Championships five times, only once won the championship, and all the other 4 times failed. In the end, they forced the strongest Dream Eight team in recent years to complete redemption. Let’s go back to the darkest 10 years of the Dream Team to see how bad their performance is!

1. The final ranking of the 1998 Athens World Championships: Third place

The American team this year was quite difficult. Since it was in the biggest suspension stage in NBA history, no big-name players were willing to obey the call of the US Basketball Association. In the end, the American team could only look for players around this year and finally formed a very mediocre lineup. The only players who could show off were Brad Miller. In addition, Michael Hawkins, Chiwan Garris, Gerald King and others are just supporting players in the NBA, so they have become the only American team that participated in the World Championships since the Dream Team in 1992 but was not named the Dream Team. However, what is unexpected is that such a mediocre American team, led by famous coach Tom Janovic, lost to Lithuania in the group stage and got the opportunity to qualify. Afterwards, they defeated Argentina, Spain, Australia and Italy respectively without being favored, and successfully reached the semi-finals. However, when facing Russia, they performed poorly, only Gerald King scored 10 points, and the team was defeated by the opponent in the final lead of 10 points. Fortunately, in the bronze medal battle, they successfully defeated the host Greek team, which was considered to be a defense of honor and ended the World Championships with a record of third place.

2.2000 Sydney Olympics final ranking: First place

After seeing the progress of world basketball, the US Basketball Association also felt panic. So at the 2000 Olympics, they still gathered as many superstars as possible, including Kevin Garnett, Jason Kidd, Ray Allen, Gary Payton, Vince Carter and others, all accepted the team's call and rushed to Sydney together. At the Olympics this year, although the Dream Team performed well in the group stage, defeating China, Italy, New Zealand and France with large scores, they only won 9 points in the match against Lithuania. This is the first time that the Dream Team has won a single digit game in the game since its establishment. After easily defeating Russia in the quarter-finals, they again faced Lithuania in the semi-finals. This time, the team was in a cold sweat. The two teams were fighting all over the game. In the last moment, Jaskovius's final three-pointer failed to hit, which allowed them to advance with a thrilling advantage of 2 points. In the final, facing France, they also faced the risk of being defeated by their opponents. Fortunately, they finally withstood the pressure and won the game. Although this event left a classic moment when Carter leaped over French center Weiss to complete a dunk, fans still had to sigh that the Dream Team is really declining.

3. The final ranking of the 2002 Indianapolis World Championships: Sixth place

Time comes to the US Domestic World Championships two years later. In order to avenge the previous shame, the US Basketball Association also attaches great importance to it this time. Before the start of the game, they invited stars such as Jermaine O'Neal, Paul Pierce, Michael Finley, Byron Davis, etc. Although the star taste is a bit lacking, they are all star-level players after all. Although Paul Pierce, who has always been a big mouth, was confident in the interview and said that the champion was just holding a handful, but the result was very bad. In the last game of the group stage, they lost to Argentina by 7 points, becoming the first dream team to lose. In the subsequent knockout rounds, they were taught by the former Yugoslavia and Spain respectively. If they had not won Puerto Rico by 10 points, their record would have been worse. But even so, they only ranked sixth in the World Championships, creating the worst record in the World Championships. It is precisely because of this that the US Basketball Association had to invite more top superstars to participate in the Copa America, which has never been favored, and finally got a ticket to the Athens Olympics.

4. The final ranking of the 2004 Athens Olympics: Third place

To the 2004 Athens Olympics, in fact, at the beginning of the game, the top five superstars in the NBA at that time, including Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Jason Kidd, etc., who were recruited by the Basketball Association. But considering that there were security issues in Athens at that time, they chose to quit. Fortunately, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, Stephen Marbury and others were still on the list. In addition, young players such as Cameron Anthony, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade were also following together. This year's Olympics can be called the Waterloo of the Dream Team. Duncan, who played very dominantly in the NBA, was completely lost in the international game. Without a pure point guard, it would be difficult for him to play a role. Marbury and Iverson's unrestrained personality once made the old coach Larry Brown want to drive them back to the United States. The young players were unable to adapt to such international competitions at all, so in this case, they only achieved 3 wins and 2 losses in the group stage, losing to Puerto Rico and Lithuania respectively.. When facing Spain in the quarterfinals, if Marbury hadn't gone wild and scored the highest 31 points in the team's history at that time, they would probably not even get a medal. In the semi-finals, they lost to Argentina again, and finally withstood the pressure in the bronze medal battle and defeated Lithuania by 8 points, only then did they save some face.

5. The final ranking of the 2006 Osaka World Championships: third place

Finally, in the 2006 World Championships, Anthony, Wade and James have already made some difference in the NBA this year, especially Wade has just led the Heat to win the championship. Therefore, the three of them are also the captain of the team, leading Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul and others to compete in the big World Championships together. However, the American Basketball Association, which focuses on becoming younger this year, is still too blind and confident. After all, it does not bring veterans. Once the team falls into a passive position, these young people have no experience at all and are likely to lose the game. Sure enough, although the team won all the wins in the group stage and the knockout stage was smooth, there was a big problem when facing Greece in the semi-finals. As a veteran strong team in Europe, although Greece had no NBA stars at the time, their team system was very mature. Spanoris, known as the "Bryant Europe", scored 22 points alone, helping Greece defeat the Dream Team upset. Although the Dream Team eventually defeated Argentina and won the bronze medal, this defeat still made them learn from their mistakes. Finally, at the Beijing Olympics two years later, a group of the best players were summoned to complete the perfect redemption.