PARIS — In a small, fluorescent-lit gym just north of Paris, U.S. Team Coach Cheryl Reeve was asked about her team's greatest strength at the Olympics.
The depth, she paused. No, the size.
“1A, 1B,” she decided.
Reeve's not wrong. With three players over 6'4″ and a cadre of guards in the 6-foot range, Team USA will have a height and size advantage from 1-5 against almost any opponent on the court at the Olympics. And when it comes to depth, other countries have been stockpiling talented players for years and may be able to compete well with the U.S. starting five for long periods of time, but the real shock for opponents will come when Reeve brings in his reserves and rotation players who can't compete with the U.S. starting six through ten. It might look something like this: Oh, you thought those five WNBA All-Stars were tough to guard? Well, how about five more? And then two more, just to be sure?
The U.S. also has two of the best players in the world in A'ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, the most experienced Olympian in Diana Taurasi, and four members of the two-time WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces (including Wilson).
So, as always, even before we even get into the traditions this team brings to the Olympics, Team USA has a significant advantage going into these Olympics.
That's because nowhere in international basketball is more dominant than the U.S. women's team right now, a team that has won seven consecutive Olympic gold medals and raised expectations (and assumptions) with each successive win.
The U.S. team has not lost an Olympic game (including pool play) since the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The closest Olympic game since the start of their gold medal streak in 1996 was a four-point win over Russia in 2004, but games this close have been rare. In the past seven Olympic Games, an opponent has lost by single digits only three times.
So it's not just a metaphor to say that this U.S. women's basketball team has never known anything but Olympic gold medals. For most of its members, it's a fact: When the U.S. women's team last lost an Olympic game on Aug. 5, 1992, only three of its members were still alive (and Alyssa Thomas was just four months old at the time).
But despite all these advantages, both historically and at this particular moment, Reeve is all too aware of the drawbacks that come with being in a country with such an abundance of women's basketball talent.
Team USA has a deeper player base than just the final 12 players on the Olympic roster, and so has a greater turnover of personnel over the four-year cycle between Olympics than other nations. When the team's roster was announced in June, all 12 players had never actually attended camp together. And when they played in the All-Star Game earlier this month, the full 12 players had only practiced together twice. This reduced preparation time leads to poor team chemistry (as was evident during their loss to the WNBA All-Star game).
“It's not going to be the talent that wins,” Cheryl Reeve said of the U.S. team. “It's going to be the chemistry of the talent that wins.” (Gregory Schamus / Getty Images)
But Reeve knew it would be one of the toughest challenges for this team. When he steps onto the court for the first time as U.S. coach in 2022, Reeve makes it clear to his team: They'll be playing teams that know each other well, that have played together, that have practiced together, but they can't use that as an excuse not to find a way to play well together.
“Talent isn't the reason we win,” Reeve said, “our talent chemistry is the reason we win. We've got to work hard on that and stay focused on that.”
Between the All-Star Game and the U.S. National Team's friendly against Germany last week, the team took big steps forward. Defensively (Reeve's hallmark), the team looked more cohesive. Reeve, who also coaches the Minnesota Lynx, brought her experience in the WNBA to the team this season. The Lynx returned just five players but came together well during the league's two-week preseason and completed one of the most impressive first halves of a WNBA season, winning the league-wide Commissioner's Cup in June.
Team USA knows the players in its pool (Japan, Belgium, Germany) have had more practice as a team, not just this last Olympic cycle, but because they have a core of players who have played together for years. But with the talent, depth and all the other advantages that Team USA has in their favor, the team is hoping to take advantage of all that time they have together on the court to build a bond that will overshadow any drawbacks that come with not having time to play together.
Because with 13 days until their first match against Japan on Monday, the team is looking to live up to the expectations clearly set by the top seven teams and stand on the podium with their eighth team gold medal.
Reeve tries to separate what this group wants to achieve in the next two weeks from Team USA's legacy of 55 consecutive Olympic victories, but make no mistake. Just as this program has done for the past 30 years, the goals and expectations are the same: Gold medals, nothing else. Big wins, nothing else. That's the Team USA way, nothing else.
(Illustration above: Dan Goldfarb / Athletic; Juan Ocampo / NBAE / Getty Images; Ryan Stets / NBAE / Getty Images)