ATHENS, Greece - The myth that the NBA could pick 12 guys based on availability and sneaker politics and still mop up a basketball floor with the rest of the world is finally deader than dead. Good riddance to that.

With this latest version of Team USA, getting run out of the Olympics was always a matter of when, not if. Maybe nobody could have predicted a month ago they’d lose more games in a single tournament than U.S. teams lost in the previous 68 years basketball has been played at the games.

But anyone surprised by Argentina 89, USA 81 must have sold their TV set shortly after Michael Jordan retired in 1999.

If so, everything you needed to know about what’s wrong with NBA basketball ever since was made all too apparent in a 35-second span at the end of the third quarter Friday night.

After Team USA pulled within 66-57, Argentina brought the ball down the floor and ran guard Manu Ginobili through a series of screens. It required the coordinated movement of bodies and ball that is a staple of international play, but something you rarely see in the league anymore.

So it was no surprise that U.S. guard Dwyane Wade, Ginobili’s defensive shadow, simply tried crashing through the final one and wound up crashing into him instead — just as the Argentine (and San Antonio Spurs) star let fly with a 3-pointer that hit nothing but net.

Ginobili then completed a four-point play by making his free throw — another lost art in the NBA — and suddenly Argentina was ahead by 10. One possession later, after teammate Carlos Boozer grabbed a long rebound off a missed Argentina shot and fired a quick outlet pass to Wade on the wing, he took off down the floor at full speed.

Getting back on defense is yet another lost art in the NBA, but nobody told that to the four Argentine defenders who raced up the court alongside Wade. Determined to produce one of those highlight-reel moves you can see any night in the NBA, Wade waded fearlessly into the thicket. He never got the shot off. Instead of a basket or a foul, Wade had his pocket picked.

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Give the NBA guys credit for something. They grumbled a little about not getting breaks, and the closest coach Larry Brown came to confirming an officiating conspiracy against Tim Duncan, his best player, was this: “I saw every game and I don’t know if there was any pattern — other than getting him to the bench.”

Then again, they hardly needed excuses once Ginobili started talking.

“I don’t think the rest of the world has reached the level of the United States,” he said. “There are different rules. They did not bring the best players. Everybody wants to do their best against the United States so, it’s really hard for those guys.”

Ginobili was part of the Argentine squad that ended a 58-0 streak assembled by NBA all-star collections standing in as Team USA at the 2002 world championships, and he repeated something he said then.

“To be sure for them to win, they have to bring their best.”

With enemies like that, the NBA hardly needs friends. It sounds plausible, and it’s probably true that if Shaquille O’Neal, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Jason Kidd and Ray Allen reported for duty, the result would have been different.

Instead of relying on the few guys who returned USA Basketball’s phone calls, and a few rookies whose popularity would help move merchandise, those players would have given Team USA more size, experience, depth, versatility, reliable shooters, and, most of all, the passing skills sorely missing this time around.

That very idea prompted Allen Iverson to say something you never thought would come out of his mouth. He practically pleaded with some of his fat and happy counterparts to show up next time, to remember how they got so fat and happy in the first place.

“Understand first and foremost that it’s an honor to be on a team like this,” he said. “It’s something you should cherish.”

But that still misses the point.

These guys didn’t lose to better talent. They lost to better teams.

That’s going to happen more and more, unless NBA teams learn how to play together again. This one had no idea how to stop Argentina’s backscreens and Lithuania’s high pick-and-roll. It couldn’t shoot well enough from outside to force most opponents to unpack their zones.

NBA commissioner David Stern spoke at halftime about how, once the league ventured into the international arena, it knew days like this were coming. He returned from the Sydney Games four years ago enamored with the style that other Olympic teams played and soon after pushed through a series of rule changes to restore ball movement and reduce isolation play.

What happened Friday night proved is that he should have thought of it sooner.