There's 3 reasons that quickly came to mind. I can really analyze and break it down, but the first 3 things that popped into my head are... 1) Talent. The world has caught up to the US in terms of talent, and the gap isn't as large as it once was. The US still clearly has the greatest talent pool in basketball, but the rest of the world has gotten stronger, more athletic and more skilled since the Dream Team steam-rolled through Barcelona in 1992. It doesn't help that in the last 20 years the US has gone away from basic fundementals in the high school/AAU systems, and more geared towards overwhelming the opponent with athleticism. Those European teams are very fundementally sound, and that creates some major issues for the US when they face teams with somewhat comparable talent like Spain. 2) Chemistry. This area is a two fold; first, most FIBA teams have been together for years, while most of the US teams of the last decade have been put together in the matter of weeks. That should be no surprise and needs no further explanation. I mean, it took the Miami Heat all of training camp, preseason and the first 20 regular season games before they started to hit their stride, and the same applies to Team USA. Secondly, when Team USA was having lots of problems, they were building teams with little to no balance. Just a cluster[expletive] of random players and athletes that didn't fit with each other. Marbury and Iverson on the same team...really?!? Not a single 3pt shooter on the same 2004 Olympic team? Having Larry Brown, one of the worst coaches ever when it comes to coaching young talent, being assigned to coach LeBron, Melo, and Wade the summer after their rookie season's, and Okafor the summer before his rookie season?!? When Colangelo came in he understood that the US would no longer be able to destroy opponents solely off athleticism and talent, so he put an actual TEAM together, with balance good enough to get by. Also, he made the 2 years between the FIBA Championship and the Olympics a time for the team to gain chemistry and identity, with each player being forced to make a multi-year commitment to the team. This has greatly enhanced the chemistry and overall level of play for the team. 3) The FIBA floor. I agree that the rules are a major adjustment for NBA players, but I feel the actual floor is just as big of a detriment. Most NBA stars, which are who we tend to send overseas, rely on their athleticism to beat their opponent off the dribble. However, in FIBA, the court is smaller, and the 3pt line is shorter. Because of this, there is far less spacing for players to operate. In the last few year's, with Colangelo running the show, the US has done a good job of putting in a lot of players capable of hitting that short 3pt shot. However, back in like 2002-2004, the idea was that the US would throw a bunch of elite athletes out there and they would simply overwhelm the opponent. That failed miserably. As dominant as our athletes are, without NBA spacing, mixed in with looser rules regarding physicality, and we start to look like amateurs out there. It also doesn't help that most of our players don't know how to move without the basketball, allowing the defense to load up on slasher, which makes things that much harder.