Every player here has a role on their NBA team, a prominent one at that. And there's not one player here who has that exact same role for Team USA.

With Amare Stoudemire the only true big in the starting lineup, Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James need to be rebounders.

"I think me and 'Melo know we gotta help clean the glass, because we're small," James said. "We don't have a lot of true bigs, so me and 'Melo gotta do a good job of helping."

"Everybody has to come back on the boards," Anthony added, "not just me and LeBron ... Amare, Kobe, J-Kidd. And they're all guys who love to do that, who love to crack back, get in the paint and battle."

Jason Kidd, who took 11.4 shots per game last season for the Nets, took just one shot in the State Farm Challenge. And he hasn't shot much in the scrimmages in this camp either.

Chauncey Billups, Mr. Big Shot himself, probably won't be on the floor if a game is on the line down the stretch, but he'll be asked to provide emotional support to those who are.

Instead of starting and getting lots of touches, Mike Miller and Michael Redd need to come in and be ready to shoot after sitting on the bench. And it wouldn't hurt if they contributed in other ways as well.

"Today, Mike Miller had five defensive rebounds," Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "He doesn't do that for his team."

"I need to find a way to fit in on this team," Miller admitted. "It's not always gonna be scoring like it is when I'm with Memphis. We've got a lot of scorers on this team. My job is to do the little things and help us win games."

And when an opponent gets hot, Kobe Bryant is willing to take on the role of defensive stopper. Krzyzewski recalled a conversation he had with KB24 before camp began.

"Kobe is one of the guys who just said 'Whatever you want me to do. I'll take that best perimeter guy every day. I don't have to be the shooter.' And I said, 'Well, let's not go too far.'"

So, Kobe will still be the go-to guy down the stretch, and he'll probably lead the team in scoring. But throughout the roster, sacrifices are being made.

"We all gotta adapt to one another," Bryant said. "We've all gotta make some kind of compromise and sacrifice. We just have to take our individual talents and plug them into the system."

"It's called being unselfish," Krzyzewski said. "Unselfish is not just not shooting the ball all the time. It's accepting new things that might make you not look as good, because you don't do them for 100 games out of the year."

And if all these guys playing in a high-school gym isn't surreal enough, seeing them all happy with their roles and happy with how things are going no matter how many shots they take just adds to the feel-good atmosphere.

Of course, it was a feel-good atmosphere this time last year as well. And that didn't end with gold. Still, you have to be impressed with how these superstars are willing to become role players.

"You gotta enjoy your role, whether it's playing 28 minutes or playing no minutes," Redd said.

For Anthony, it's all about the W's. "On this team," he said, "I could score 10 points, LeBron could score five, Kobe could score 12, and we still got a chance of winning the basketball game."

"That's the beauty of the team," Redd added. "You don't have to do it all. We can all score the basketball. It's just a matter of who's open and making the right plays."

Chris Bosh, even though he has to sit out this year with plantar fasciitis in his left foot, sums it up best.

"When you bring all that together," Bosh said of the alpha-male mentality all these guys have, "it's hard to get it out of your system. But you have to remember, when you put that USA on your chest, you're playing for a totally different team."