The Lithuanian Tavern: Diary of the Uncredentialed, Edition V

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QUEENS, New York — The first thing that must be said about Team USA’s surprisingly close victory over Lithuania was how strongly LeBron James played over the final 5 minutes of the game, when the Americans turned a two-point deficit into a five-point victory.

LeBron had never had a finishing kick like that in a FIBA game. Never.

It was always someone else doing the heavy lifting in those rare instances when the Americans were in peril, with one case in point being the gold medal game against Spain four years ago in Beijing when it was Dwyane Wade carrying the team down the stretch.

The second thing that must be said is that Team USA’s vertical vulnerability was exposed in this game.

With no shot blockers on the floor when Tyson Chandler was on the bench, the rim was unprotected. And whenever Lithuania got to the basket, there was no last line of defense.

Also, the Americans were outrebounded (42-37) for the first time in the tournament.

The third thing that must be said is that y’all must endeavor to someday eat a plate of Kaldunai, a Lithuanian dumpling of mystery meat covered with bacon bits and served with sour cream.

Kaldunai, a Lithuanian dumpling dish garnished with bacon and sour cream. Yummy.

See that picture of a bowl of Kaldunai?

(Apologies for the blur. Had some Euroschmutz on my phone camera lens). That was my first serving.

I reloaded and knocked down a second dish of those bad boys as I watched the game at a Lithuanian-American tavern that opened 3 hours early and served nothing but Kaldunai to a crowd of about 10 people — all of whom, myself excepted, were openly cheering for Lithuania to pull off what would have been the biggest upset of the entire Olympics — no matter what beach volleyball aficionados might say.

Fourth, if you ever need to sample a bottle of Lithuanian beer, you now know where to go — the generically named Avenue Restaurant in the Glendale section of the world’s most international city.

There is a beautiful but camera-shy bartender who works on weekends, and you may even run into Mr. Romas Kezys (pictured above with his son Edward), who hails from Vistytis, Lietuva, and whose sons own the restaurant. (The Lithuanian-American patrons seemed quite American, right down to the New York accents, but they had no shame in cheering for the team in green and yellow on a steamy Saturday morning when those who awoke early were rewarded).

Prior to the riveting USA-Lithuania game, Russia came back from a 20-2 deficit to defeat Spain. It was one of those games that had an only-in-FIBA dynamic to it when Pau Gasol went to the line for two free throws with 5 seconds remaining and Spain trailing by two. As the referees handed him the ball for the first shot, the game clock inadvertently began to run. So they blew the whistle, took the ball away from Gasol and spent 2 minutes resetting the clock.

Then, Russia coach David Blatt called a timeout to further ice Gasol, who has a history of missing big free throws in big games against Russia (he missed six of ‘em in the fourth quarter of the gold medal game of Eurobasket ’07 in Madrid as Spain was defeated at home by those very same Russians).

When they finally got back to business, Gasol clanged the first shot off the rim, missing badly. He made the second, but Spain was out of timeouts and had to go fullcourt with 3 seconds left after Vitaly Fridzon made two from the line for Russia. The inbounds pass went to Marc Gasol in the backcourt, and he appeared to have no idea what to do before finally deciding to fling a shot from near the opposite foul line that never had a prayer.

But back to the US-Lithuania game, which has given the rest of the world renewed hope — no small thing after Team USA’s 83-point beatdown of Nigeria made it seem like the gold medal was a fait accompli.

Yes, the Americans did what they do best. They forced 23 turnovers (six by Sarunas Jasikevicius and seven by Mantas Kalnietis) but converted those miscues into just 26 points. And when they had to run a set offense, they often looked disjointed and indecisive – until they gave the ball to LeBron at the top of the key for a series of late of clear-outs that the NBA champion capitalized on.

“I feel like it was my time to step up offensively,” James said. “I have kind of been doing everything else, which I am OK with. I am here to do the little things, whatever the team needs in Coach K’s perspective. Like I told you guys, I can also score. I am blessed and happy. I was able to make a few buckets down the stretch.”

The patrons in Queens sat in their seats and clapped in appreciation as the game ended, proud but somewhat pissed off that their team hadn’t come through in the final 5 minutes. But with the exception of two shaggy-bearded youngsters who spoke Lithuanian throughout the game as they sat to my right, these folks were all as well-versed in NBA basketball as any other Americans, and they knew that they had run into a buzzsaw known as the new LeBron.

He showed us all something in the NBA finals, and he showed us some more on Saturday morning.

There are times when he cannot be stopped, but there are also times when the road to the gold medal game will get a little bumpy for coach Mike Krzyzewski’s crew.

“So far in the tournament things have come easy to us because we’ve been hitting so many shots,” Krzyzewski said, “and today because of the defense sometimes I think we passed up on shots because of guys hitting so many, you want to see them hit again instead of taking your shot. We can play better, but we played against a terrific team today.

“We had 17 steals that didn’t translate to the number of points that they should. Usually we get some momentum but today we got steals but not the points. It showed great resolve on their part that when they did make a mistake, they recovered quickly and didn’t have their head down. We beat an outstanding team today and had a lot of game pressure on us and we came through, and I am proud of them for doing that.”

See you Monday from yet another bar in Queens, the next one an Argentinian establishment. And a special shoutout to Rita Stankeviciute of the newspaper Lietuva Rytas for pointing me in the proper direction for a little taste of Lithuania so close to home.

(DIARY OF THE UNCREDENTIALED, EDITION IV: From New York)

(DIARY OF THE UNCREDENTIALED, EDITION III, FROM PARIS, FRANCE)

(DIARY OF THE UNCREDENTIALED, EDITION II, FROM BARCELONA, SPAIN)

(DIARY OF THE UNCREDENTIALED, EDITION I, FROM MANCHESTER, ENGLAND)

Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor-in-chief of SheridanHoops.com. He has covered every version of Team USA since 1996, at the Olympics in Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and Beijing, as well as the World Championships in Indianapolis, Japan and Turkey. Follow him on Twitter.

 

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WTF NBC? Diary of the Uncredentialed, Edition IV

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NEW YORK, Aug. 3, 2012 — Being that I was 38,000 feet in the air, enjoying the comforts of the business class cabin of a KLM 747 when the United States was rewriting the record book against Nigeria, I set out to watch the streaming replay before dawn this morning on NBCSports online.

Black screen. Nothing would play. Nothing.

Tried it four times, logging out, logging in, changing my Internet provider password, etc. Can I have the last 45 minutes of my life back? Is this what y’all were tweeting about in the #nbchate hashtag campaign I was reading about while in Europe? Is this just the tip of the iceberg? (It’s been 20 years since I was subjected to watching the Summer Olympics on NBC).

I’ve just returned from France, where there are almost no commercials cluttering the coverage — but almost nothing to watch that interested me. You like judo, team handball and equestrian? Then get thee to France. Stuff is on nearly 24/7.

One break Parisian viewers received was a live feed of the France-Argentina game a couple nights ago, followed by the US-Tunisia game on one of the cable channels. I watched it at a tavern called the Great Canadian in the center if Paris, where the following two photos show what I saw in front of me, and what I saw if I looked behind me.

France-Argentina on TV in Paris

Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So you’d think “The Great Canadian” is a redundant name, right?

I did, until I saw what they were charging for a pint of beer — 7.50 Euro, which equals $9.18. There are nightclubs in Vegas, tourist traps in Manhattan and ballparks all across America that won’t cross the $9 beer threshold, but I found the place that is bucking the trend.

One of my tweeps, an attorney and a huge Knicks fan, had read diary Edition III, which dealt with the Boris Diaw burger, free Frosted Flakes and other assorted anecdotes, and he saw that I had announced my next destination. So he showed up, he brought his newlywed wife (they were honeymooning), and we watched France-Argentina together. If you have a sec, send a shoutout to @Cocolevio. He married quite well.

The US-Tunisia game started at 11:15 p.m. local time in Paris, so the second half was out of the question because the last train had to be caught. So I imagine riding the Paris Metro is off the bucket list — not that is was ever on it.

At some point I will watch a tape of the US-Nigeria game, as I have arrived home with all sorts of new knowledge about how to circumvent Internet rules. You spend four days with American ex-pats, and there are all sorts of tricks they can show you.

As for the Nigeria beatdown, the best line from that game (that did not involve an American player’s stats) came from Tom Withers of the Associated Press:

“The last group in England with this many records was The Beatles.”

Withers is an old friend from my days at AP, so I hope he does not mind a nitpick-slash-ballbust: The words “LeBron” and “James” are conspicuously absent from his game story. Is this because you are an Ohioan, Tom? The Heat media (a.k.a #heatmedia) are going to be deeply offended. Plus there is a wealth of material to draw upon – getting stood up by swimmer Lauren Perdue, having more assists (17) in the tournament than points (14), clubbing at Funky Buddha.

Anyway, back to US-Nigeria game.

_ Carmelo Anthony’s 37 points shattered the record of 31 set by Stephon Marbury in 2004 at the semifinals in Athens against Greece. U.S. coach Larry Brown and Spain coach Mario Pesquera had a public pissing match both on the court at the final buzer and during the post-game press conference over Brown’s decision to call a timeout in the final minute when the game was out of reach – an egregious breach of FIBA etiquette. ”I had — and I stress the word ‘had’ — a lot of respect for Larry Brown,” said Pesquera, who smirked and shook his head when he heard Brown explain that he tried to rescind the timeout. “Dean Smith would have never done anything like that.” I can still see the veins in Brown’s forehead popping when he heard that.

_ Anthony’s 10 3-pointers obliterated the U.S. record of six set by Marbury in that same game, and Team USA’s 156 points not only marked the largest margin of victory ever by a U.S. Olympic team (the original Dream Team beat Cuba by 79 in their first game together vs. Cuba at the 1992 Tournament of the Americas in Cuba), but it also shattered the old U.S. mark of 133 points set vs. China in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics.

Which leads me to a tangent.

I covered that 133-point performance against China in 1996 when I was greener than an unripe banana, and I when I left the arena the media bus was just pulling away. So I decided to walk back to my hotel, which was less than a mile away, and I decided to take the peripheral route rather than straightline it through Olympic Park, which was mobbed.

As I was walking home, this happened:

I spent that night reporting from Grady Hospital, the largest in Atlanta, and pretty much everyone in Atlanta spent the next several days watching the coverage of the U.S. authorities investigating/castigating security guard Richard Jewell, who had spotted the bomb moments before it exploded and warned folks to move away. If not for Jewell, the death toll would have been much higher than two.

Maybe three days after the bombing, I was walking back to the Georgia Dome to cover a game when I was told by a security guard or a police officer (can’t remember exactly which) that he needed to have a look inside my computer bag. Looking back on it, I was aghast that such a request was being made. In America, no one has the right to search you or your belongings without probable cause.

At least that was the case prior to 1996.

Since then, my bag has been searched hundreds of times at various events. The police here in New York now routinely execute a controversial “stop and frisk” policy, in which no probable cause whatsoever is needed to stop a citizen (usually a black or Hispanic citizen) and subject them to a pat-down. When you think about it, it’s astounding how much our value system has changed as the U.S. has evolved more and more into a police state.

Anyway, back to the London Games.

Here is one point I will make about the American’s crushing of Nigeria and Spain’s shocking one-point margin of victory over Great Britain, both of which happened yesterday: Both count as 2 points because they are in the “W” column. You do not get bonus points for piling on.

(RELATED CONTENT: Roundup of Thursday’s men’s basketball games in London.)

And after three days of competition, here is how things are shaping up:

_ That victory by France over Argentina was crucial, because France has all but locked up 2nd place in Group A. They defeated Lithuania on Thursday, and now all they need to do is defeat Nigeria and Tunisia to go into the knockout round without having to face the United States until the gold medal game — should each of them get that far.

_ Over in Group B, the jockeying is to finish 1st or 3rd. If you finish 2nd, you will likely have to play the Americans in the semifinals. Going into the final two games of pool play, Russia and Spain are tied at 3-0, and those teams play each other tomorrow. Should Russia defeat Spain, a tank alert should go out for Monday. That is when Spain will play Brazil with 2nd place in the group at stake. Whoever wins would be on track to play the U.S. in the semifinals. Whoever loses gets to avoid Team USA until the final.

___

An explanation for the New York dateline on this diary entry (and the fact that I was 38,000 feet in the air for the US-Nigeria game) is called for, and so here is the story. I played all my cards seeking that elusive credential, and my last couple of lifelines were coming up empty. Then I received an e-mail from USA Basketball informing the media that men’s basketball would now be a ticketed event, which means you need to have a credential and a special media ticket to cover the games (a policy that hadn’t been implemented since Atlanta in 1996).

No thanks.

Your faithful correspondent makes an early exit from Europe

The view from the balcony at the Renaissance Hotel in Amsterdam

So I dropped 100,000 Delta miles on a KLM business class ticket, non-stop from Amsterdam to New York, traveled through the north of France and Belgium to reach my cold and rainy destination (yes, it is hot over here in the States, but the Europeans would gladly take it. They have had cold and rain followed by more cold and rain, at least in Paris and Amsterdam.)

So my Delta frequent flyer account balance is now down to 438 miles, which means it’ll be a loooong time before I ever sit in the upstairs section of a Boeing-747 and dine on marinated shrimp accompanied by potato salad, cherry tomatoes, vichyssoise, creme of avocado, sweet and sour cucumber, coriander pesto and tapenade (that was just the appetizer) and fillet of chicken complemented by mashed potatoes, pearl onions, chicory, mushrooms and bacon (main course) with a couple glasses of 2011 Castel Firmian Pinoit Grigio from the dynamic Mezzacorona winery in Trentino, Italy.

The diaries will continue from stateside points yet to be determined. The only certainty is that one dateline will be New London, which is nearby.

As for that other certainty — Team USA winning the gold, let’s all take a step back and wait and see. Yes, the Americans were my pick, and Spain cannot touch them without Juan Carlos Navarro playing at full strength. I still think Brazil is the biggest threat, but Russia and its crafty American coach, David Blatt, could be the dark horse.

Remember, every team has one bad game during FIBA tournaments. It is a rule of thumb.

Until next time …

(DIARY OF THE UNCREDENTIALED, EDITION I, FROM MANCHESTER, ENGLAND)

(DIARY OF THE UNCREDENTIALED, EDITION II, FROM BARCELONA, SPAIN)

(DIARY OF THE UNCREDENTIALED, EDITION III, FROM PARIS, FRANCE)

Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor-in-chief of SheridanHoops.com. He has covered every version of Team USA since 1996, at the Olympics in Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and Beijing, as well as the World Championships in Indianapolis, Japan and Turkey. Follow him on Twitter.

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The Boris Diaw Burger: Diary of the Uncredentialed, Edition III

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The triple-cheeseburger at Boris Diaw and Ronny Turiaf’s restaurant in Paris.

PARIS — When one is uncredentialed for the Olympics, yet in Europe anyway, and there is a France-US opener, where is the next best place to be?

Among the French, of course.

That is what brought me Sunday to a sports bar in the 19th district, a spiffy place partly-owned by Boris Diaw and Ronny Turiaf, and I do believe I may have found the secret to Boris’ big belly.

Pictured to your left is the triple cheeseburger on the Menu at Arret de Jeu (Translation: Stoppage of Play), and it is not the biggest burger on the menu. As it was, there was more than a pound of beef on that bad boy, but I could have ordered the “quadruple” for an extra Euro, and quintuple for another Euro, etc.

Memo to Boris and Ronny: It was a quiet day for your business. There were about two dozen basketball fans in the restaurant, they were all whispering so as to not disturb the other patrons, and the only time they went bonkers was when James Harden threw down his windmill dunk.

Other observations were made from afar, being that I am on the wrong side of the White Cliffs of Dover and what not. Here they are:

_ Clearly, and a bit surprisingly, Kevin Love has moved ahead of Andre Iguodala in the rotation. Looks like he earned that spot by grabbing nine rebounds in 13 minutes of the final exhibition game against Spain, and perhaps it is because Love (who follows SH) read Diary, Edition II, which explained his lack of playing time and the reasons behind it.

_ As I told you following that final exhibition game in Barcelona, the Americans will have a cold spell here and there from 3-point range, which is exactly what happened Sunday in the first quarter against France. But eventually, somebody is going to start knocking them down, and today it was Kevin Durant for the Americans. For the French, they have no such luxury. They went 2-for-19 today, and Nando De Colo looked like he will be more of a liability than an asset for the San Antonio Spurs next season.

_ The oddsmakers had this one pegged, as the line was 25 and the French were one late missed 3-pointer away from covering as they lost 98-71 (The over/under was 168 1/2, which means the over covered by a mere half-point). I had no action on the game, but if this uncredentialed business continues, I may be filing from a Ladbrokes after I get to London next weekend.

An American in Paris, sort of covering the Olympics

_ Team USA now ceases to become a story for the rest of the week. They play Tunisia and Nigeria, and the games start at 10:15 p.m. local time, which is absolutely brutal on the sportswriters who are actually at the games. The next semi-interesting match is next Saturday against Lithuania, then two days later against Argentina. The Americans will likely win both with relative ease, which means the most important thing for the other teams in Group A to do is to finish second, which means they would not have to face Team USA in the knockout round until the gold medal game. That makes Tuesday night’s Argentina-France game especially interesting, and I will be taking in that scene from The Great Canadian, in Place St. Michel —  stone’s throw from the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Now, back to the Boris burger.

In a word: Bravo.

The beef was ground right before the burgers were made, and the beef here in France is all organic. It was tremendous, and I knocked off the whole thing in 15 minutes. The Cola-Cola served here is made with sugar, not corn syrup, and served out of a 330-milliliter (11-ounce) glass bottle. Nectar, I tell you.

The sports bar in Paris partly owned by Boris Diaw and Ronny Turiaf.

But if Boris is eating these burgers regularly, we have our answer as to why he shows up to training camp each year looking like The Baguette King.

As for Ronny, I am not going to say anything bad about him because he has always been very nice to me.

He even loaned me his Ferrari for this morning’s ride to pick up my new French girlfriend.

I videotaped the ride with my dashboard camera:

___

Speaking of baguettes, I have a baguette story to tell, and it happened the very same day the U.S. team was getting lost on its bus again in London traffic, as chronicaled by the AP’s Brian Mahoney. As Mahoney and his MSM brethren were enduring the circus that was the Team USA official press conference in London, myself, my expat musician friend and his wife were grilling sausages on a Weber. They live in an upscale neighborhood where several Paris St-Germain players live during the season, and the best golf course in France (Golf de St.-Nom-La-Breteche) is a half-mile away.

We needed bread, so my buddy Jansen, lead guitarist for Carousel Vertigo, headed down to the local boulangerie for three loaves. It was 6 p.m., and when he got home the bread was still warm.

Let’s just say the French do bread, chocolate and architecture quite well. You order vanilla ice cream here, and it comes inside of a puff pastry with a pitcher of hot chocolate sauce on the side.

___

I gave you a leftover story in Diary II from Manchester, England, about the former Michigan defensive lineman I met at the US-GB friendly, and I have one leftover from the trip to Barcelona that must make it into Edition III.

Trying to be as Catalan as possible, I did not shave the first six days I was there — nor the three days before.

So when it came time to shave that near-beard off, I went to the local superette and purchased a six-pack of Gillette disposables. I have no idea why, but they threw me a free box of Frosted Flakes that apparently came with the razors. What the hell and what the heck, right? Anyway, I took the cereal. Nobody can say no to Tony the Tiger.

___

Watched the opening ceremony on TF1, a.k.a Channel One, and they showed the entire thing start to finish with just one 30-second commercial the entire time. I know a few people have been knocking the presentation, but I thought the musical aspect and the British pop culture theme were brilliant. Others have written that the ceremony in Beijing was better, to which I respond thusly: One of the reasons the Chinese had so many people working in such precision is because they practiced for months on end, and the performers were given adult diapers because bathroom breaks were not permitted. For my tastes, McCartney singing “Hey Jude” and Pink Floyd being coordinated to a fireworks display was not only much more human, but humane. Four years ago I was in a taxi driving through Tiananmen Square on night of the Opening Ceremony. Ghosts were out that night.

___

Credential update: Playing some of my best cards now, but in no rush to get there for the Tunisia and Nigeria games. Also, everybody is on edge at the Olympics for the first 3-4 days, then it gets a little more relaxed. But the final 3 days, Londoners will be begging the rest of the world to go bloody home. So the diaries will continue for the time being, from points yet to be determined. (I cannot keep watching team handball and judo on French TV). Anyway, my editor does not mind.

___

Getting some grief from the Spanish media after picking their team to finish fourth behind the U.S., Brazil and Argentina – especially after Australia played well in a 4-point loss to Brazil earlier Sunday. Here is the thing with Brazil, and you can take this straight to Ladbroke’s if you’d like: If they win their pool play group, they will not have to play Team USA until the gold medal game. And if Team USA somehow manages to lose in the semifinals, Brazil could play a much weaker opponent for the Olympic title — and they’d be doing it at odds of 40-1.

A bientot.

PREVIOUS DIARIES OF THE UNCREDENTIALED:

Edition I: July 19, Manchester, England: The night Kevin Durant became a starter, not a Sixth Man

Edition II: July 23, Barcelona, Spain: The reasons why Kevin Love is buried behind Andre Iguodala

Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor-in-chief of SheridanHoops.com. He has covered every version of Team USA since 1996, at the Olympics in Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and Beijing, as well as the World Championships in Indianapolis, Japan and Turkey. Follow him on Twitter.

 

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Sheridan: Diary of the Uncredentialed, Edition II

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BARCELONA — Memo to Kevin Love: If you don’t knock someone on their ass tomorrow, and if you continue to play as though you have a sense of entitlement rather than a job to do, you are going to be watching Anthony Davis take your minutes as the last big man off the bench.

That advice is based on solid intel, because the powers that be at USA Basketball are not happy that the Kevin Love they came to appreciate two years ago in Turkey has somehow morphed into a Kevin Love who didn’t even leave his feet Sunday night when he got outworked for a rebound by Andres Nocioni in Team USA’s closer-that-it-should-have-been 86-80 victory over Argentina.

As it is, Love is the 10th man in the Americans’ rotation, watching Andre Iguodala take what could be his minutes. The reason? Iggy makes things happen on the defensive end, poking balls away, disrupting penetration and creating the transition opportunities that Team USA thrives on.

So if Love finds himself getting muscled by Serge Ibaka or Marc Gasol or Pau Gasol tomorrow night when the United States plays Spain in its final (and toughest) exhibition game, a little irrational exuberance might not be called for — but it’d be a welcome sight to those in the U.S. federation who believe Love has gone soft, too soft to be useful.

“Obviously I’d like to go out there and be playing with these guys, I really feel like I can help. I know my abilities and know what I’m capable of,” Love said Monday. “You know, Coach K and I have talked about it — this isn’t 2010. I obviously played more in 2010, but I’m a completely different player now and a far better player. So we’ll wait and see what happens. I worked into my playing time in 2010, and hopefully that’ll happen here. I just need to find a way to get into a rhythm in limited minutes, which is tough.”

Love logged only 5 minutes of burn in the American’ 11-point victory over Brazil a week ago, played garbage time minutes in Manchester, England, against Great Britain after picking up three quick fouls without accumulating any other statistics in the first three quarters of that 40-point victory, then logged only seven minutes against Argentina with two rebounds and an assist, and no points.

He is being asked to play out of position at center, but pretty much everyone outside of Deron Williams and Chris Paul is playing outside of the normal positions they play in the NBA.

Davis has been firmly entrenched as the 12th man, but the coaching staff is intrigued by his shot-blocking abilities and his well-developed inside-outside game.

Yes, he is raw. But he also is the only other natural center aside from Tyson Chandler, and there will come a time when the Americans needs some sort of deterrent and/or physical presence at the rim and under the boards. If Love doesn’t get after it, he’ll be waving a towel in London.

Love is playing 25 pounds lighter than he was two summers ago in Turkey, which he says has been to his advantage. “That’s helped me. If you look at last season and the season before, I had a breakthrough season in 2010-11, and then last year I felt, and I still feel, I’m one of the best players in the league.”

“I just need to get into a rhythm, and there’s no real chances out here to do that. I was playing more minutes in Turkey than I am now, and they can say I’m not playing great. But I didn’t touch the ball yesterday, and there’s nothing I can really do in that regard. As far as rebounding the ball, I’m always going to do that. But if they don’t think I’m playing great, then fine. But hopefully I can prove that I am once I get a chance to get out there. Guys like LeBron and Kevin and Carmelo are playing a lot of 4. I’ve been playing mostly 5, playing out of position, so who knows?”

_____

This column is entitled Diary of the Uncredentialed because although I am traveling with the U.S. team on their pre-Olympic tour, once they go inside the Olympic bubble, I will not have access to their games (although not for a lack of trying).

The deadline to apply for Olympic credentials was two years ago, and small independent Web sites are not high in the pecking order when the IOC decides to make exceptions and grant credentials after the deadline. (If you missed Edition I of the Diary of the Credentialed from Manchester, England, there is a big bold line right beneath this sentence with a link to it.)

(RELATED CONTENT: Diary of the Uncredentialed, Edition I)

But here in Catalonia, I am indeed credentialed.

And what a credential it is.

“Hey Chris, what’s that around your neck?” Miami Heat president Pat Riley asked me at the conclusion of practice today. He is here with Heat honchos Mickey and Nick Arison and intern-turned-executive Andy Elisberg, and he had to leave through the same entrance as the hoi polloi after the Team USA bus pulled out of he loading dock.

What was around by neck was my credential for the two games against Argentina and Spain, and it is undoubtedly the flimsiest credential I have ever been issued.

Seems the machinery used to make laminated credentials broke down, and the Spanish federation volunteers have taken to printing new credentials on a plain white piece of paper, clipping it down to size with a scissors, punching a hole in it and attaching it to the end of a lanyard.

I have not had any kind of a paper credential since I was a card-carrying member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and that paper credential once got me in free to a Triple-A Salt Lake City Buzz baseball game back in the mid-90s when I was covering Karl Malone, John Stockton and the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference finals. I remember it vividly, as Lee Guetterman pitched that night (he was on the tail end of his career). Later that same evening, Ken Berger and I visited what looked like a pretty hopping nightclub. As we stood on line to get in, I asked a young lady if I could buy her a beer inside. She looked mortified and said she did not drink.

I said “How about a Coke?” and she replied: “Oh, I don’t drink pop.”

Turned out the place was a Mormon nightclub. Who even knew such a thing existed?

___

Speaking of nightclubs and nightlife, there is a new worldwide leader in the clubhouse named Barcelona.

Imagine a beauty pageant in which the contestants just keep on parading through, hour after hour after hour after hour. That was what it was like Saturday night in the Marina district, near where the U.S. team is staying, as myself and a certain other U.S. reporter who had his telephone and camera pickpocketed hung out into the wee hours of the morning.

It is a well-known fact that folks in Catalonia and other parts of Spain like to eat dinner late — like 11 p.m. or midnight — and then party until dawn or later. But to see it firsthand was an incredible sight to behold.

LeBron James was right: This place is an awful lot like Miami. I understand why he would want to live there, and I could see myself relocating permanently to one of the most beautiful cities in all of Europe is circumstances permitted it.

Another U.S. reporter expressed shock and awe today when I informed him that I have been traveling to and from the practices and games aboard the subway (called the Metro here) to reach the apartment that a friend of this site has graciously provided.

It ain’t like the old days when I worked for AP and ESPN and I could take taxis everywhere I wanted to go, then hand in the receipts upon the conclusion of the trip and be fully reimbursed. I’m on a low budget, but is sure is refreshing. Today, for instance, there was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was up around 90 degrees. This made the Metro stations feel like a blast furnace, but that is not such a bad thing. The hotter the temperature, the less clothing people wear. And less clothing equates to excellent sightseeing, if you get my drift.

Again, what a city!

___

I have one leftover item from our stop in Manchester that I neglected to include in Diary, Edition I.

At the game against Great Britain, I was riding the elevator to the press room, and there was a security guy in there who was built like Brock Lesner. I asked him if he would be competing in Greco-Roman wrestling at the London Games, and he said “No — but I did once play American football. Turns out the guy was a defensive lineman for the University of Michigan back in the day.

“Did you beat Ohio State?” I asked.

“Yes, twice,” he said.

___

Speaking of college athletics, word spread fast today at Team USA practice when the draconian penalties against Penn State were announced. The phrases “worse than the death penalty” and “absolutely no due process” were quickly thrown around. I won’t name names, but there are members of the U.S. federation who are not exactly big fans of the NCAA and its hierarchy.

It should be noted that only one quarter of the U.S. roster — James, Kobe Bryant and Chandler — are from the preps-to-pros generation that existed before the one-and-done generation came along.

And on a related note, one-and-done facilitator Worldwide Wes is once again traveling with the team. He appears to have gained more weight in two years than Kevin Love has lost. And yes, he has an Olympic credential — just as he did in 2004 in Athens when he stayed with the team aboard the Queen Elizabeth II, and just as he did in Beijing when he called the Intercontinental Hotel his home. That was the hotel where Team USA stayed — a place that Kobe Bryant said he could not leave “because the Chinese army won’t let me.”

Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor-in-chief of SheridanHoops.com. He has covered every version of Team USA since 1996, covering them at the Olympics in Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and Beijing, as well as the World Championships in Indianapolis, Japan and Turkey. Follow him on Twitter.

 

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Sheridan: Diary of the Uncredentialed: Edition 1

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Manchester Town Hall in Albert Square, seat of local governance, is an example of Victorian era Gothic revival architecture.

MANCHESTER, England, July 19, 2012 _ Team USA is staying the night tonight.

They will leave for Barcelona in the morning, refreshed or not. You don’t get many nights off on the way to the Olympics after 40-point wins, but Team USA got that rare treat tonight, and perhaps the paparazzi will tell us more tomorrow.

This column is entitled Diary of the Uncredentialed because I am over here in Europe with Team USA until they enter the Olympic bubble.

Once they are in, I am out …

At least for now.

I haven’t played all my cards yet. But Diary of the Uncredentialed is what I will write until that elusive Olympic credential comes in, if it does. Maybe I’ll be better off embracing an outsider role a la Hunter S. Thompson, as colleague and SH columnist Jan Hubbard suggested when I told him about my $77 non-stop ticket to Manchester, which didn’t quite work out (more on that below).

So if I stick with Diary of the Uncredentialed, I will strive to entertain you with stories about Team USA and stories about the logistics and happenstances of covering them from outside of a mainstream media perspective. This if my fifth Olympics, and my last TV memory of the Games was Roy Jones Jr. getting mugged by the judges in Seoul in 1988.

I was not assigned to Barcelona in ’92, and I was covering baseball at the time and did not pay much attention. (Hubbard was there, and he’ll have a column about his experiences on Monday). I picked up Team USA coverage in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics, and I’ve been with them at every stop ever since.

So here is tonight’s Team USA diary news:

Deron Williams got to accompany coach Mike Krzyzewski to the interview podium tonight after killing it as Team USA’s new starting point guard, which might be an experiment or might not be. Chris Paul had started against the Dominican Republic and Brazil, and Williams was a player who had to sit out the first few days of training camp until he signed his “$95 million contract,” which is what Krzyzewski called it at the podium.

D-Will had the good grace to not publicly inform Krzyzewski that the contract is closer to $100 million than it is to $95 million.

Bottom line is that Williams is more invaluable than people realize.

And now his he the starter, and maybe Chris Paul is the new Rajon Rondo, albeit to a lesser and different degree.

(RELATED CONTENT: Team USA will have 7 starters; Kevin Love the 10th man)

Some background: The last time Coach K and Jerry Colangelo took a team to Europe, it was the summer of 2010 and the team had to get from JFK in New York to Madrid.

Colangelo was on a limited budget and had chartered a shit-ass airplane (UPDATE: Colangelo disliked that description. He said it was the Lakers’ plane, and the refueling stops were necessary to comply with international aviation regulations). They had to stop at the edge of Newfoundland and in Greenland to refuel. It turned into a 20-hour excursion, and they were dead-ass tired as they walked into the Four Seasons in Madrid. I waited outside that hotel for them to arrive for 5 hours. I hung out with a freelance camera crew working for Nike (who got fired two days later for slacking), and I chatted with an 18-year old kid in a Grizzlies’ Navarro jersey that might be worth something some day.

Anyway, the next night the Americans played their first exhibition game, against Lithuania, and scored 8 points in the first quarter with Rondo as the starter.

Eight.

Rondo walked the ball upcourt all night, and the U.S. team barely got through it. Kevin Durant and Eric Gordon carried them in what turned out to be a tighter game than it should have been.

‘Two nights ahead was a game against Spain, in Madrid, and the B-Deem team was in a crisis. If you are Team USA and you score 8 points in the first quarter of your first game on European soil, you are in a crisis.

Krzyzewski knew it, and two nights later against Spain he had a new starter —  Derrick Rose.

The Americans jumped on Spain from the start, the crowd never got into it until 39 minutes had elapsed, and Rondo was toast. He quit the team two days later in Athens.

But here was the thing with Rose: He started to suck, seriously, and by the time we finished up in Istanbul two weeks later, Krzyzewski was going with Russell Westbrook as his go-to guy. Rose never had a good stretch again until the fourth quarter of the gold medal game against Turkey when the B-Deem team pulled away.

But the point here is that Krzyzewski developed quite an affection for Westbrook, who is also spending the night here in Manchester tonight after dropping nine dimes off the bench in the 40-point victory over Luol Deng, Pops Mensah-Bonsu and the Great Britain team, coached by American Chris Finch. (Best Olympic nugget anywhere: Paul Mokeski is an assistant for Team GB. I used to love Mokeski when I went to college in Milwaukee and he came off the bench, a pudgy white guy with range and an ethnic last name in that German-Polish American city, and Mokeski was beloved — even though he and and Jack Sikma and Sidney Moncrief and Paul Pressey never got past the Eastern Conference finals. But I digress.)

Westbrook and Williams are going to be the key guards for Team USA, no matter how good Paul is.

Krzyzewski has faith in them.

Deron was his finisher in Beijing. Paul was on that team, as was Jason Kidd, the starter and the calming veteran voice in the locker room.

But Deron Williams was Coach K’s favorite.

“There’s nothing he can’t do. Absolutely no weaknesses in his game,” Krzyzewski told me one afternoon in 2010 over dumplings and other Chinese delicacies at the Wynn in Las Vegas. ESPN picked up that check, and I encouraged gluttony on behalf of Uncle Walt.

The other place where Coach K made a change tonight in Manchester was at the 4, where Kevin Durant (who can be a 3 on defense) replaced Carmelo Anthony in the starting lineup. The is quite significant given the fact that Durant can’t be coming off the bench, especially after Team USA 1.0 shit the bed in the first quarter against Brazil. LeBron can play the 4 on defense, Coach K needs about 35 minutes out of Durant to win the gold medal, and he realizes it.

I give him credit for realizing it before the first game in Europe, instead of after as he did two years ago in the Rondo purge.

(RELATED CONTENT: Team USA is in trouble if lineup changes are not made)

(RELATED CONTENT: President Obama witnesses 11-point win vs. Brazil)

One other piece of Krzyzewski-CP3 history: Coach K lost faith in Paul and replaced him with Kirk Hinrich in 2006 at the World in Japan. I know because I was there. So there is a history of someone replacing CP3 at the point for Team USA.  Hopefully Chris enjoyed himself against the Dominican Republic and Brazil. He now gets to become the energizer bunny off the bench.

Team USA leaves in the morning for Barcelona, 20 years after the Dream Team made history there. The exhibition opponents will be Argentina and Spain, two worthy opponents. The games should both be close. Team USA will not be a 32-point favorite like they were against GB (covering easily in one of the biggest lock bets ever).

I will in Barcelona tomorrow night, the airline gods permitting. I am flying EasyJet, so we shall see. Being a frequent flyer veteran who goes back to the days of People’s Express (you had to pay your fare in cash in mid-flight), I think I’ve seen everything.

Which brings us back to the $77 flight to the Olympics that I wrote about above.

So when I was looking at airline flights to get over here with the team, I found a one-way ticket fo 30,000 Continental/United miles and $77 in taxes. I had 32.000 miles in my account. Booked.

Bingo, right?

I got to Dulles airport from downtown Washington for $6 on the 5A bus, but that triumph was trumped by the “Cancelled” that was flashing next to the DC-Manchester non-stop. The woman at the counter told me I had been re-booked through Frankfurt with a 6-hour layover. She was not open to reason or discussion.

So I found myself in Frankfurt 8 hours later, I had a frankfurter at a very nice airport cafe (had to, right?), and went to my gate. I decided to put my head down to a two-hour nap, and three hours later when I awoke the place was empty, the airplane was gone and I was stuck in Germany with my brilliant $77 non-stop ticket that wasn’t quite that anymore.

Long story short: Wonderful Lufthansa woman, call to United, negotiated $75 change fee, Heathrow, sprint to connecting flight to Manchester, luggage didn’t make it, I stink like Muresan never did, I finally get to the hotel and open the computer, and it’s dead. (Loose piece of plastic in battery plug area).

So no luggage, no computer, no phone (memo to Verizon — get a roaming partner here), 300 Euro poorer.

But I made it to the game, it was a sellout with a genuinely raucous crowd, and Coach K replaced two starters. I’m glad I somehow made it here. And yes, it rained. And no, I did not pack anything with long sleeves. That was another 30 Euro.

So ends Diary of the Uncredentialed, Day One.

I’ll file again from Barcelona, Travel Gods permitting. I have a flight back to Gatwick a week from Friday. Perhaps I’ll be credentialed by then. Perhaps not. Maybe I’m better off without an Olympic credential. I have four old ones back home in New York, I’m feeling a been there-done that vibe, and maybe I’ll end up outside the bubble. Maybe that’ll be better. We’ll see.

Hasta luego en Catalonia.

Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor-in-chief of SheridanHoops.com. He has covered every U.S. men’s national team at the Olympics and World Championship since 1996. Follow him on Twitter.

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