Crisis in U.S. men basketball - USA loses to Uruguay in Panamerican Games opener

The biggest surprise of day 1 of Panamerican Games is Uruguay victory over tournament favorite - U.S. team 81-72. It only confirms that the rest of the World already catch up with USA in basketball. The U.S. team does not have professional players. But it's a combination of college top stars, who will end in 2-3 years in the NBA. That was a good solution for many years as U.S. men team was able to dominate Panamerican Games for a long time. It ended few years ago. USA maybe did not decrease the level, but everyone around catch up with them. Basketball - the sport dominated for decades by USA finally become the global one. Just look shortly at the history. Few years ago there was World Club Championships sponsored by McDonalds. There was an event of top clubs (not national teams) from around the World, which played in one place. It was another opportunity for U.S. to prove their World dominance. They sent each time one of the weakest NBA teams, and they managed to win the tournament. But not for long... The gap decreased from year to year and finally NBA team needed overtime to win it. Then ...the tournament stopped and was never played again. Let's look at the U.S. national team. Not too many people remember time when few decades ago USA sent their top college team to international championships and they were able to win everything. Again, not for too long... Then they decided to include also professional players and real Dream Team era started. There is no question that first version of Dream Team (with stars like Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley) won all they wanted showing real class. Not for long... Next versions of Dream Team did not get as much respect as the first one. U.S. national team managed to get the victories, but similarly like in McDonald's Club Championships, the gap was shrinking very fast. Finally they started losing in both Olympic Games and World Championships. So what was the reason? Media tried hardly to prove the point of dominancy of U.S. basketball. They blamed too short preparation time, international rules, etc. But the loses become slowly a very common call for U.S. teams. First they were beaten by strong teams like Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Argentina and ...Puerto Rico. Now even Uruguay (with high respect to their attitude) can add to their records a vistory over U.S. team. Just recently they lost in World Championships U19 to Serbia. So together with their loss to Uruguay, the year sta