By now, it is pretty obvious that the 2006 version of USA Men's Basketball is much better than the team fielded in 2004, but just how much better is worth looking at. Each team played five exhibition games leading up to their respective tournaments so those are the games I compared. It remains to be seen how USA will do in the World Championships, but the outlook looks bright for the sort of success that has eluded the national teams for the last few years.

In 2004, the national team played two great games, one horrific game, and two not-quite-good games. They destroyed Puerto Rico and Serbia-Montenegro, outscoring those two teams by 15.9 points per 100 possessions and 14.9 points per 100 possessions, respectively. Italy outscored the US 33.3 points per 100 possessions, a dominating performance in every sense of the word. To be outdone in offensive efficiency by such a margin as this is reason enough to forfeit your spot in any world tournament, but the US kept playing. Overall, the US put up an offensive efficiency of 106.3 points per 100 possessions in their five exhibition games. They allowed their opponents 104.7 points per 100 possessions. That slight advantage for the US speaks of a slightly above .500 team, which is the sort of team they ended up being in the Olympics, going 5-3 (note: I have the advantage of writing this in hindsight, but the numbers did give an indication of what their future performance would be if they stayed the course they were on).

By contrast, the 2006 version has run roughshod over all five teams who were foolish enough to step on the same court. Even in their worst game, when they only beat Brazil by four points, they still had an offensive advantage of 11.9 points per 100 possessions. For the five games, the team has put up 128.0 points per 100 possessions while giving up only 89.3 points per 100 possessions. It doesn't get any better than that.

However, the difference between the two teams does not stop at how efficiently they play on both ends. The 2006 team is also better at taking care of the basketball; they have averaged .168 turnovers per possession while the 2004 squad turned the ball over .222 times per possession. Also, USA men's basketball version 2006 has a higher offensive rebounding percentage (.351 to .260) and they have a much higher effective field goal percentage (.613 to .568), on the strength of making more than twice as many 3's as the 2004 bricklayers.