PARIS — Here we are, standing in the middle of the Place de la Condorde, face-to-face with newly-minted bronze medalist Cierra Burdick from the American women’s 3x3 basketball team.
I feel a little bad for her because the question everybody really wants to ask is not the kind of thing you put to an athlete after what is supposed to be one of the great moments of their life. So instead, everyone just nibbles on the edges: What do you want to see from 3x3 in the future? How can it grow in America? How do we keep the momentum?
Meanwhile, what we mean is plainly obvious: WHY THE HECK IS TEAM USA NOT SWEEPING GOLD MEDALS IN THIS SPORT?
We invented basketball. Name the form of it: 5x5, 3x3, Streetball, Slamball, HORSE. Doesn’t matter. We have the deepest pool of talent in the world to draw from. We’re supposed to win. We don’t celebrate bronze medals around here, and if this were a sport USA Basketball were actually serious about, everyone involved in the men’s 2-5 showing in Paris (after not even qualifying for Tokyo) would be fired.
“It’s not the medal we wanted, obviously,” Burdick said. “But I don’t want to take away from the moment. I want to be, you know, grateful to be here.”
MORE:Olympics 3x3 basketball is a mess. How to fix it before the next Games.
So that pretty much tells you all you need to know about where the U.S. stands in 3x3, and the people in charge are going to spend the next four years heading into Los Angeles trying to figure out how to fix it because goodness knows our country cannot take this kind of embarrassment on home soil.
There will be hand-wringing. There will be smart people who make very serious suggestions about what we can do to prevent our men losing to Latvia and Poland like they did here. There will be more tournaments, more 3x3 camps, more pressure on NBA players and top-end WNBA players to get involved.
And I’m here to tell you something after watching it up close in Paris: The effort isn’t worth it.
Because this sport stinks.
Sorry to be the party pooper here, but it’s true. And deep down, you know it too. if you really love the sport of basketball for its strategy and artistry and end-to-end athleticism … well, this ain’t that. It never will be.
It’s what pickleball is to tennis. It’s a fake Rolex you can buy for twenty bucks in Times Square. It’s what Stars & Stripes Cola is to co*ke.
It’s not for me.
“I mean, I would love for it to grow,” Burdick said. “I would love for there to be 3x3 camps on the youth side. We’re starting and launching a professional women’s 3x3 league in the States, and I want to continue to push that forward and see that grow and hopefully get more young girls and boys playing.”
This is where I jumped into the conversation. In my head, I’m thinking: You’d love for there to be a WHAT? You’re launching a WHAT? You want to get more young girls and boys playing WHAT?
But what I asked was more tactful, more along the lines of whether this is all pointing toward specialization in 3x3 just so Americans can chase gold medals once every four years?
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think I’m a prime example that you don’t have to specialize. I mean I come to Europe and play 5x5 for eight months out of the year and then I get to go home and play for my country with 3x3, so I have the best of both worlds in my opinion. I think if you can play 3x3, you can play 5x5.”
Let’s hope so, because the one thing American basketball absolutely does not need is a bifurcation of the game where people grow up thinking this schlocky product is anything more than what it is.
Get Olympics updates in your texts!Join USA TODAY Sports' WhatsApp Channel
It would be one thing if 3x3 actually looked and felt like real basketball. Instead, it’s a lot of fouling (and way too much reward for getting fouled) and a lot of bad shots being taken at the end of the 12-second shot clock. And because the game is only 10 minutes long, it’s by nature going to be kind of random.
A lot of the discourse back in the U.S. this week was about why we can’t get lower-end NBA players or even the best G-Leaguers who would never sniff an Olympic team to commit to playing some 3x3. Just watch one game of players grabbing each other as they randomly run around half of an actual basketball court and you’ll figure it out pretty quick.
Which leads to a bigger question. If the Olympics is the pinnacle of international sports, and basketball is already an international sport that showcases the world’s best players, why do you need a lesser form of it? If 3x3 can’t attract players who would be considered among the best several hundred in the world at their chosen sport, what’s the point of having it in the Olympics?
Apparently it’s already popular in Europe and growing fast. Congratulations to them.
But there’s really no need to freak out about why the two American teams only came home with one bronze medal in 3x3.
Being in the Olympics makes it a real sport, but it’ll never be more than bad knockoff basketball.
Follow Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast.Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
