Nothing makes international sports reporters weak in the knees the way the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team does. People with years in the business and scads of experience suddenly become goofy fans, trying to get close to the tall men from the United States.

The American men found an hour in their busy day to drop by the Main Press Center this morning and hang out with maybe 400 reporters. Most of whom later thronged the 12 guys — Kobe and the Gang, that is — lobbing soft questions and trying to figure out ways to have their pictures taken with LeBron.

OK, not all those people were reporters. Many of them were the Beijing volunteers,  who apparently see enough NBA basketball to know when the blue-chippers are in the room

There were lots of fairly ludicrous moments.

After the team fanned out throughout the 800-seat auditorium to do “smaller” interviews, I actually feared for the safety of Kobe and LeBron James — who disappeared beneath masses of humanity on the main stage. Those two got by far the most attention.

Others, such as Dwyane Wade, Carlos Boozer, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony, had more modest groups around them (a dozen people, or two). Not life-threatening, anyway.

Had NBA commissioner David Stern been in the room, he would have been smiling, because the giddy reaction to his guys, on this side of the Pacific Ocean, speaks to the growing global popularity of basketball, which is poised to become the clear No. 2 sport in the world. (Behind only soccer.)

The NBA players aren’t treated like regular guys. They don’t stay in the Athletes Village. Partly because they’re not used to the spartan existence of the typical Olympic athlete. Partly because they prefer five-star luxury.

And in part because they would be mobbed there, even by other athletes likely to leave here with gold medals.

It’s been this way since 1992, when the NBA first showed up, at Barcelona. That was the original Dream Team, and still the gold standard. This one is known, from time to time, as the Redeem Team, hoping to regain basketball gold after the dysfunctional 2004 crew went 5-3 in Athens and settled for a bronze medal.

Anyway, they’re still show-stoppers.