It can be overcome, of course. There are remedies for all bad habits. But it takes time. This team doesn’t have enough of it.

After routing Australia 113-73 on Sunday, the competition gets tougher, starting with Dirk Nowitzki and Germany in the quarterfinals on Wednesday. Argentina and Spain are the favorites here. Both advanced to the quarterfinals with impressive performances on Saturday. Argentina survived a bad night at the three-point line to defeat New Zealand behind Manu Ginobili’s 28 points, while Spain got 19 points and 15 boards from Pau Gasol to oust defending champ Serbia and Montenegro. Argentina next faces Turkey while Spain gets Lithuania.

Any of those teams could knock off the U.S. Even though squads like Argentina and Spain are also led by NBA stars, it’s the overall team concept that gives them the advantage, not whether their players ever appeared in an All-Star Game.

Three-pointers are also lacking among Uncle Sam’s bunch. They’re capable of making some, but they don’t have a lineup rich with long-range sharpshooters. That’s vitally important in this competition. Granted, a team like Argentina can go 1 for 18 and still prevail like it did Saturday against New Zealand. But a rash of three-pointers from two or three hot hands can fell the best teams. The U.S. just doesn’t have the capability to vanquish a foe from trey land.

It isn’t so much that this was a poorly constructed team, as others have been. The issue is whether it’s possible to construct an ideal team for international competition from an American talent pool that is so influenced by NBA-style basketball. Since the world has caught up to the U.S. — something that happened quite a while ago, by the way — notice that the U.S. hasn’t really adjusted. That may be because the needed adjustments are impossible given the mindset of American players.

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There’s still a chance the U.S. can put the kibosh on all that criticism and stick it to the pundits and win the whole thing. That’s why they play the games. If the Miami Heat can put an aging bunch of disgruntled veterans together and win the NBA Finals after being down 0-2 to a younger, more athletic and seemingly hungrier club like the Dallas Mavericks, then anything’s possible.

All it will take is a complete change of identity. In basketball parlance, that’s not exactly a layup.

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