With the conclusion of one of the most exciting NBA seasons in recent memory, basketball fans around the world will now shift their focus to a men's Olympic tournament that also promises to be one of the most competitive on record.

Since basketball was introduced to the Olympics in 1936, the United States has been running a one-horse race, winning three times as many gold medals (12) as everyone else combined.

But now the rest of the world has caught up - Argentina is the reigning Olympic champion and Spain the reigning world champion - making the eventual Beijing gold medalist anybody's guess.

Marcos Beltra, press director of world basketball governing body FIBA, says the newfound parity among national teams could make this year's tournament, which tips off on Aug 10, the most competitive in the history of international basketball.

"This issue comes up every year, not only in the case of the Olympic Games - there is an overwhelming and recurrent feeling that the next competition can be, in fact, the best one ever," he said in an e-mail interview with China Daily. "We expect the Beijing Olympic basketball tournament to be of the highest possible level."

It was not so long ago that the US "Dream Team" of the 1992 Games was obliterating opponents by an average of nearly 44 points a game. But now officials like USA Basketball spokesman Craig Miller admit that, "for the first time ever", the US is not the clear favorite. So how did the world close the gap on the US so fast?

Beltra says the emergence of countries like Argentina, Spain, Lithuania, Russia and a host of others is "a direct result of the globalization of the NBA" - the ever-increasing number of non-US players in the league, which he says has helped demystify many US superstars.

"Fear is not a factor any longer (as it was before)," he said. "By competing and matching themselves against NBA players on an almost daily basis during the season, many international players realize that their US counterparts are human beings and not superheroes."

Currently about 18 percent of NBA players were born outside the US, up from 7 percent a decade ago. And while Dwight Howard (the US center who comically donned a Superman costume as he soared to win the slam-dunk competition before this year's NBA All-Star Game) may still like to fancy himself a superhero, the past several years have seen international stars performing many of the heroics.