The Argentine Men’s Basketball Team: Gold for the Golden Generation

To reclaim its longtime dominance of Olympic men’s basketball, the United States, beginning with the 1992 Games in Barcelona, put together a succession of “Dream Teams” made up of a clutch of National Basketball Association (NBA) stars destined for the Hall of Fame. In the process of steamrolling the competition, those glamorous Dream Teams sparked an explosion of international interest in basketball that contributed to a meteoric rise in the level of play elsewhere in the world. So improved was the quality of the game globally that in 2002 Argentina defeated an American Dream Team at the world championships. When the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens rolled around, the Argentine team, made up of roughly the same players as the 2002 championship team, would not be denied in its pursuit of the gold medal, which it won by defeating Italy 84–69 in a game kept close at various junctures by hot shooting by the Italians. Previously, Argentina’s best finish in basketball had been fourth in the 1952 Games in Helsinki, which was the last time the country had won Olympic gold of any kind. To the joy of Argentines, on the same day that their basketball team captured the gold medal, the Argentine men’s football (soccer) team also won gold.

To reach the gold-medal final against Italy, Argentina had to survive a semifinal matchup with a U.S. team that had been somewhat hastily thrown together, had not played together much, and had not attracted a number of the NBA’s best players (namely Shaquille O’Neal, Kevin Garnett, and Jason Kidd). Meanwhile, the Argentine team, coached by Rubén Magnano, featured a talented group of players (especially versatile big men) who became known as the Golden Generation as they continued to be a dominant force in international basketball. (Argentina would win the bronze medal in the 2008 Games in Beijing.) Their leader, Manu Ginobili, who scored 29 points in the 89–81 defeat of the Americans and who had already begun to make his mark in the NBA as a member of the San Antonio Spurs, summed up the result succinctly: “The rest of the world is getting better and the States isn’t bringing their best players.” In the wake of Argentina’s triumph, a number of other players on the team went on to play in the NBA, including Fabricio Oberto, Carlos Delfino, Luís Scola, and Andrés Nocioni (another team member, Pepe Sánchez, had played several seasons in the NBA prior to the 2004 Games).