<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Here it is August and there's a basketball column bouncing your way. For that, Dwyane Wade, Miami's one-man Heat wave, is to be thanked. He is the jet fuel to Shaq's diesel, the MVP of the NBA Finals, the stylish young superstar who has almost everything a gym rat could squirrel away by age 24. Almost. There is, by the evidence of a thousand crash landings, too much competitive fire in this guy to be contained by one continent. Starting Saturday and for two weeks thereafter, Wade and LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony will pool their precocious talents with other top American pros in pursuit of true global conquest for Team USA. It's the FIBA World Championships in Japan, a tournament far more challenging, more perplexing, than any playoff series with the Chicago Bulls or the New Jersey Nets. The Dream Team Olympic fantasy has run its course, in case anyone out there has failed to notice. What remains is a long, hard slog through an off-season that never really turns off for those U.S. stars who care enough to give their very best. Thankfully, Wade is included in that group. It is yet another thoroughly admirable trait in an athlete who already has proven himself trustworthy in every way. As a clubhouse leader. As a teammate. As a student of the game and a believer in year-round training. As a husband and a father. As a smiling portrait of everything an NBA player should be. For my money, this three-year commitment to USA Basketball is the ultimate demonstration of Wade's maturity. His jersey is No.'1 in nationwide sales at NBA stores. His off-season schedule has been a blur of TV talk show appearances and ad shoots. On a more practical matter, Dwyane's body took a pounding all through the playoffs, and deeper into the summer than any other member of the national team. Count the costs here. Kobe Bryant and Paul Pierce sat out this round of international play with injuries. Chauncey Billups took time out to spend with his family, with a wake-up call requested for the 2008 Olympics. If Wade had taken a pass on the 2006 world championships for these or any other reasons, it would have been perfectly understandable and readily accepted. He didn't. He couldn't, seemingly. Wade was a member of the U.S. team that settled for the bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. What's more, he was a reserve on a team led by Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan and never scored more than 12 points in a game. Wade won't rest, in other words, until he has seen the other side of this mountain, and he is humble enough to take directions from Mike Krzyzewski, a college coach, as part of Team USA's new and more cohesive overall strategy. Nothing less will do if America is to whip this sport back into shape. FIBA (a French acronym for International Basketball Federation) no longer can be dismissed as "For International Basketball Also-Rans." This tournament is brutal and it's stocked with NBA stars from many nations. Do you think that Group D, Team USA's neighborhood in the early rounds, is soft just because China, Slovenia, Italy and Senegal are the other teams? Better remember that Italy won silver at the Athens Games, one spot higher on the medal stand than the United States. Serbia and Montenegro won in 2002 and Yugoslavia in 1998. Argentina, with San Antonio Spurs star Manu Ginobili, is the defending Olympic champion. Puerto Rico beat Team USA by the startling score of 92-73 at the Olympics two years ago, and Puerto Rico is Team USA's opening opponent Saturday night. The U.S. hasn't won the world championships since 1994. "I don't think you're ever going to see again a United States team that beats everyone else by 30 or 40 points," Ginobili said. "That was 15 years ago, or whatever it was. Now basketball has changed. Many of us are playing with them every single day and we're getting closer." Wade doesn't need to be told any of this. What he needs is to change it. Maybe when the Heat returns to training camp this fall, he'll be sore or tired or resentful of the recuperation time that was lost.</div> Source
