Losing isn’t option for Team USA

MACAO -- Opening the Asian phase of its exhibition season, the U.S. men’s Olympic basketball team will play Thursday night (today, 5 a.m. PDT).

Wait! Come back!

If this sounds purely ceremonial, it was in this game -- the first exhibition overseas for Coach Larry Brown’s team in 2004 on its way to Athens -- that Italy routed the U.S., 95-78, in Cologne, Germany.

This presaged the Americans’ Olympic debacle. The U.S. managed to win a bronze medal but lost three games -- one more than all the previous teams had lost, put together.

Ominous precedent notwithstanding, this is no powerhouse for Turkey with center Mehmet Okur not participating and Hedo Turkoglu’s availability in question.

This U.S. team won its first exhibition last week in Las Vegas, trampling Canada, 120-65. Anything much closer Thursday night won’t go over well.

More signs this isn’t last summer: Amid reports that Sacramento Kings forward Ron Artest is headed for the Houston Rockets, the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant said . . . nothing.

“I hadn’t thought about it at all,” Bryant said at Wednesday’s practice.

And the Lakers’ small forward position?

“We’re fine,” Bryant said.

Bryant, once critical of Lakers moves or the lack thereof, has announced he is out of the GM business and is sticking by it.

Artest was so eager to join the Lakers, he made a series of appearances on local talk shows. With Coach Phil Jackson a known admirer, it would have been possible -- if Artest had been willing to opt out of his $7.5-million-a-year deal and take $5.5 million from the Lakers.

However, he announced he wouldn’t take less, declined to opt out and then, one day later in true Ron Artest fashion, said he regretted not doing it.

Back when Bryant was desperate for help, he asked the Lakers to get Artest as well as Baron Davis and Carlos Boozer. That was then and this is still now.

--

[email protected]