I had just finished watching the game when I received Karl’s message. The United States, led not by one-name celebrities like Kobe and LeBron but by the gifted young star, Kevin Durant, defeat Turkey to win the quadrennial FIBA championship. Order has been restored (again), and the Americans re-asserted their claim to the summit of the world’s basketball heap. This was not the “Redeem Team”, the collection of NBA royalty that brought the Olympic Gold back to the United States from Beijing after the humiliation of a bronze medal in 2004. (After a long tradition of Olympic gold, the Americans silvered in a controversial final-game loss to the Soviets in 1972, and bronzed in 1988, the last time they sent a group of college kids into the five rings. The famous “Dream Team” of 1992 – Larry, Magic, Michael, et al. – was supposed to signal the return of never-ending American mastery as the United States could thenceforth send its top professionals.)