San Juan, Puerto Rico • July 14-25, 1999

From the start, USA head coach Larry Brown said he wanted this USA squad of NBA stars to play the right way-to play unselfishly, play hard and defend.

That's exactly what his team did and the reward was a qualifying berth for the 2000 Olympics and a perfect 10-0 record.

Playing 10 games in just 11 days, this tournament was as much about surviving as it was winning. The United States cruised problem free through its first round games and finished 4-0, then advanced to the second round where its winning ways continued as the Americans finished on top of the second round standings with an 8-0 mark. Matched against Argentina in the semifinal and in need of a win if the Olympic berth was to be realized, the U.S. disposed of Argentina, then defeated Canada in the gold medal game to finish the quest with a spotless 10-0 record.

Gary Payton paced the high scoring USA offense averaging 16.0 ppg. and 4.6 assists, while Tim Duncan tossed in 12.7 ppg. and team highs of 9.1 rpg. and 2.4 blocked shots. Kevin Garnett averaged 11.9 ppg., 7.0 rpg. and 2.2 blocked shots a game, Tim Hardaway scored 11.9 ppg., Allan Houston added 10.4 ppg. Guard Jason Kidd scored 7.4 ppg. and led the U.S. in assists, handing out 6.8 a game.

The USA finished averaging 97.8 points a game and won its 10 games by an impressive margin of 31.6 points a game. The U.S. limited its opponents to 35.8 percent shooting overall from the field, the best of any of the four previous USA Senior National Teams that consisted of NBA players (the previous best was 36.5 percent by the 1992 Tournament of the Americas team).

Allowing its opponents an average of just 66.2 points a game, that also established a new low by a USA Senior National squad, improving on the previous low of 70.3 ppg. which the 1996 USA Olympic Team established. The five USA Senior National Teams have now compiled a 40-0 record, which dates back to 1992.

"We just play defense,'" said Payton, the USA's leading scorer for the tournament. "Alley-oop dunks don't win games. You don't get alley-oop dunks all the time. What won these games was when we played defense, got steals and got easy baskets. We were out here to play defense and shut people down. And that's what we did."

1999 USA MEN'S OLYMPIC QUALIFYING TEAM ROSTER

1999 USA MEN'S OLYMPIC QUALIFYING TEAM CUMULATIVE STATISTICS