Like many of Woj's columns, this comes off as a hatchet job with an axe to grind. This one in particular comes off as meandering and repetitive to boot.
I am not a Duke fan, but my memory still holds up. And I remember that from 2002 to 2006, the US send just as good- if not better players - as the ones it send in this World Cup and they had a string of failures. Then they made a deliberate decision to change their philosophy, emphasize team play and tailor the team to international play. I distinctly remember Colangelo and Coach K saying these things in 2006 and 2007. Apparently, they have been so successful in this task because Team USA's victory seems preordained these days.
I can tell you that the World Cup is pretty big abroad; when I was growing up, I considered it more prestigious than the Olympics Basketball tournament. This year a lot my people got bothered that Koufos wouldn't join our team. I would actually preferred if all NBA players participated in the tournament instead of opting to rest.
Apparently, NBA GMs don't like this because they don't like seeing their assets at risk of injury. The same thing is true of world soccer execs, but their grumbles don't go anywhere because the international competitions are really popular. In America they may hold sway because the World Cup is boring for Americans. But the irony is this. It becomes less boring when America loses, but when she does, it becomes an affront to national honor, a fluke occurrence that people should make sure it's not repeated again. So, I am guessing that until the day comes when worldwide talent is more evenly distributed across nations and American success doesn't seem pre-ordained, the US basketball program will go through these cycles of caring and not caring about world events.