For better or worse, pros in Olympics to stay

Abasketball game featuring the United States men’s team is one of the very few places at Tokyo 2020 that can draw a crowd.

Fans are generally forbidden, but a few hundred credential-bearing souls reliably find their way into Saitama Super Arena to see Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, Jayson Tatum and their star teammates live and in person. Late Saturday, the onlookers included the usual crowd of local volunteers, some members of the Belarus delegation and a couple guys from Malta. Which is fair enough: how often does KD play in Minsk or, uh, whatever the capital of Malta is?

The Americans quickly fell behind by 10 points to the plucky Czech Republic — who beat Canada in the lastchance qualifying tournament — and they looked, as they often have since assembling last month, not all that interested in playing hard. They hoisted early shots, and missed most of them, didn’t do much on defence, and trailed 25-14 after the first quarter.

Then they blew the Czechs out of the building. A bunch of NBA All-stars played like NBA All-stars, hitting a hilarious 75 per cent of their shots over a stretch that included the entire middle two quarters of the game and half of the fourth. In the end they eked out a 119-84 win to secure a quarter-final berth after losing to France in their opener.

It was not a great advertisement for the inclusion of professionals at the Olympics. After days of events in which athletes scratch and claw just to get here and live and die with every stroke and stride and exertion, a random collection of fellows shows up, yawns their way around the court for a bit and then casually tosses an opponent aside.

Coupled with the long list of wealthy tennis and golf professionals who couldn’t be armed to come to Japan and try for a medal, which was itself a repeat of the situation at Rio 2016, and it’s fair to wonder if the IOC’S desire for star power has taken some of the shine off their event. One of the unexpected side effects of a pandemic Olympics that put considerable restrictions on athletes is that fewer big names bothered, pushing more of the traditional “amateurs” into the spotlight. Can it be the pinnacle of sport when so many of the best athletes in the world don’t treat it as such?

But a few hours before that Usa-czech Republic game tipped off, a contrary scene played out at Ariake Tennis Park. Novak Djokovic and Pablo Carreno Busta were battling for the bronze medal in men’s tennis, and it was going unexpectedly. Djokovic, the Serbian legend who is marching to the career Grand Slam record, came to Tokyo as a big favourite, with an Olympic gold the only thing missing from his incredible trophy case. Then he lost to Alexander Zverev in the semifinals and needed to beat Carreno Busta for the consolation prize. On Saturday he dropped the first set to the Spaniard and pulled out the second set in a tiebreaker, but in the third he lost a point after a long rally and threw his racquet into the (empty) stands. A few games later he smashed a racquet on the net post in frustration. “Sometimes it’s difficult to control your emotions,” he remarked later. You don’t say. Carreno Busta would go on to win the match, and the medal, after Djokovic first saved a pile of match points in the third set. On the winning point, Carreno Busta crumpled to the court, and remained flat on his back, next to the Olympic-ring logo, the picture of elation and exhaustion. He didn’t even win the tournament, he would say later, and yet it was the biggest win of his career.

Sometimes the pros are just as invested as the average steeplechaser. Djokovic desperately wanted that medal, and he couldn’t be accused of sleepwalking through his losses. So, is there a way to make the Olympic events that involve athletes who normally chase non-olympic glory feel less like regular pro events that are missing some people?

The answer is not to go back to amateurism. Many Olympic sports are so well-funded by certain nations, Canada included, that it is a full-time job for athletes, who are also free to earn money from sponsors and partners. The pros-at-olympics bottle cannot be re-corked.

Golf could become more of a team event, instead of the current individual stroke-play format that is like any other PGA Tour event, except for the three medals at the end. Team play usually adds some spice and pressure to the golf proceedings, although Sunday’s wild bronze-medal playoff might have just shelved that discussion. Could tennis figure out some kind of team format at the Olympics? Fewer countries would have to be involved, and it would require qualification and schedule changes, but more players might do it if it was a chance to really try something different.

The situation with men’s basketball, we can hope, will end up resolving itself. It’s an international game now, and as more countries produce elite NBA stars, the United States might end up forced to do more than throw together a team of whoever happens to be available and interested. It happened to Canada in hockey, over a long period of years, and now Olympic hockey is as exciting as the sport can get.

The idea that USA Basketball cannot just show up and expect to win a major international tournament has been generally accepted for a while now. And yet they might just show up and win this one.