Amar'e Stoudemire Recalls Larry Brown Suspending Him, LeBron and Iverson During 2004 Olympics

Amar'e Stoudemire recently reflected on the time he, LeBron James, and Allen Iverson were suspended one game by Team USA head coach Larry Brown for being late to a meeting.

During his visit to 7 PM in Brooklyn, Stat recalled with Carmelo Anthony how tightly Coach Brown was running the ship with Team USA in the summer of 2004. According to Melo, the 2004 US men's basketball team had just come together for a few weeks before heading to Athens, but Stat, James, and Iverson were late to a meeting, which led to Brown suspending them for an exhibition game.

"It was [Stoudemire], AI, and Bron," said Melo. "You talk about the three biggest names at this point in time. You talking AI, who was damn near the face of the world, right? He's the face of the world in basketball. You got this young rookie of the year, you know, Stat, and then you got Bron, who was about to be rookie of the year."

He continued, "Now you have this ready to go, and then you made a statement, and I respect the statement that you made, and you stood on it, right. As you get older, you understand if you on time then you're late. I get it, but don't start the meeting early."

Stat added that he, Bron, and AI were in the training room but left to get to the meeting a few minutes early. That clearly wasn't enough, as Brown considered them late and suspended them from a game against Puerto Rico.

"We actually in the training room getting taped and getting ready for practice," said Stoudemire. "So we get our bags, and we rush over to the meeting, and we're early. We there like a few minutes early so we thinking we're good, right. He's like 'You ain't playing , ou ain't playing.'Like 'What do you mean we're not playing?'"

Melo claimed that at the time, Brown had his issues with Iverson, and he didn't want Stoudemire or LeBron to pick up on the 76ers legend's habits, so he had to make a statement that lateness of any kind wouldn't be tolerated.

"It wasn't a casualty of war, it was setting the tone," said Melo. "'AI, you the guy, and you leading Amare, who's the young guy. You also leading LeBron James, right? So I have to set the tone to let LeBron know that's not allowed.'"

He added, "'I got to set the tone on AI that I'm not going to allow you to influence LeBron that way.' It was multi-layered, which is why he said, 'Allen, I'm not dealing with that anymore.' That's how it kicked off."

The 2004 US Olympic men's basketball team went on to have an excellent showing during exhibition matches; however, that wasn't the same story once they arrived in Athens for the Summer Games. The group lost three games, the most ever lost by a US men's Olympic basketball team, and went home with the bronze medal.