(Halloween came early for Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard)

The Nation’s Dave Zirin on USA Basketball’s curious attempts to play the patriotism card.

It is not surprising that Coach K loved the military angle. He’s a graduate of West Point who led the Army squad for five years. And there is nothing new about coaches using the language of war to inspire a winning team. But how does “engaging with the military” translate in these troubled times? It means that Colangelo and Krzyzewski have brought out soldiers maimed and crippled by the war in Iraq to inspire their “troops” in high-tops. This has included Capt. Scott Smiley, who is now blind after a Mosul suicide car bombing sent shrapnel into his brain, and another, Sgt. Christian Steele, who had part of his hand blown off. As Smith wrote, “It was a more than subtle message that playing with ‘USA’ on your jersey means a lot more than trying to win a medal. And it seems to have produced the desired effect of breaking down individual team loyalties and more quickly uniting this American team.”

The team, reportedly, was moved to tears. But there is something unnerving about these motivational tactics.

Etan Thomas, the power forward/center for the Washington Wizards, saw the military presentation on NBA TV and knew in his gut that it was wrong. He said to me, “I don’t have a problem with the troops talking to the players on their own. But for them being brought in to build a better basketball team just feels wrong. If I was there, my reaction would have been completely different. The fact that…Scott Smiley has lost his sight would not have made me feel patriotic pride. It would have made me feel ashamed, angered and saddened that this soldier was blinded at the service of a war we shouldn’t have been in in the first place.”

To use a deeply unpopular war from which, according to a recent Zogby poll, 72 percent of troops want to escape, and using the injured for public relations purposes, feels more like exploitation than motivation, especially when spearheaded by Jerry Colangelo. Colangelo has been pouring his money into efforts to strengthen ties between Republican politics and the religious right. He was a deputy chair of the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign in Arizona, and Colangelo’s deep pockets contributed to what is called the Presidential Prayer Team, a private evangelical group that claims to have signed up more than 1 million people to drop to their knees and pray daily for Bush. During the election summer of 2004, as Max Blumenthal has reported, Colangelo bought ads on 1,200 radio stations urging listeners to pray for the President.

Colangelo has never been shy about using sports to project his politics. On April 5, 2003, he designated the Phoenix Suns’ contest against Minnesota “Arizona Right-to-Life Day”.

The former Diamondbacks CEO also helped launched a group along with other baseball executives and ex-players called Battin’ 1,000, a national campaign that uses baseball memorabilia to raise funds for Campus for Life, the largest antichoice student network in the country. Battin’ 1,000 stands against all abortions, even in the case of incest or rape. Its motto: “Pro-life–without exception, without compromise, without apology.”

Colangelo has a fellow political traveler in Mike Krzyzewski. Coach K is a longtime Republican donor who made waves when he hosted a 2002 fundraiser for North Carolina senatorial candidate Elizabeth Dole at the university-owned Washington Duke Inn. His group, to the consternation of many non-Republican faculty and students, was called “Blue Devils for Dole.”

In addition to their politics, Colangelo and Coach K have something else in common: There is no published evidence that either ever served in combat. They might have gained a different perspective on the meaning of sports and war had they actually suffered the pain, boredom, fear and death of a live battle.