[nativist]

Its one thing not to dominate sports in general and quite another to not dominate our own sports. Losing in anything has been hateful to Americans my whole life. When NY Giants play the Dallas Cowboys the fans of both teams want to win badly. We have always loved our local sports teams with a passion and our local sports teams used to hate the opponent (now so much money is involved athletes tend to see each other as business associates).

Americans my whole life wanted to beat the Soviets in the Olympics as they were our arch enemy. We relished in defeating them. We didn't always win but the passion to win and the desire to win and the hatred of losing was always there, in everything.

The problem I have is that we elevate these pro basketball players to god-like levels. In America we have pounded in the head of everyone that basketball is a black mans sport (as is boxing) and that their athletic prowess is superior to everyone else's, and for the most part most people believe that. Now we have Europeans and Argentinians beating us in what was supposed to be our sport dominated by the worlds best athletes.

Just because we lose doesn't mean the idea of losing isn't hateful. It may not be to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton but for most Americans it is.

[dfwgator]

What's really telling is here is this thread with only about 20 replies, and this is one of our big sports.

Meanwhile supposedly nobody cares about soccer in the US, but the World Cup threads each had hundreds of posts.

Kind of puts in perspective how meaningless this tournament is.