Spain & the United States: a growing basketball rivalry?

The days of a Fernando Martin gushing about the Americans’ basketball prowess are over.

If you don’t remember Martin, he was the star of Spain’s basketball squad when they faced the United States of America during the gold medal match of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. That was the game where Michael Jordan, still a sophomore at the University of North Carolina, wrote on a piece of yellow legal pad a message for then coach Bobby Knight: “Coach, don’t worry. We’ve put up with too much shit to lose now.” Knight forwent his pre-game speech and the US thrashed Spain 96-65 to win the gold.

After that game, all Martin (who later played 24 games for the Portland Trailblazers) could do was exclaim in halting English, “Jordan… Jump, jump, jump. Very quick. Very fast. Very, very good. jump, jump, jump."  READ MORE