Beijing ? It didn’t cause quite the stir.

The stars weren’t nearly as pampered, or arrogant, or famous.

But the team might have been better. A lot better.

The U.S. men’s basketball team, an assemblage of superstars and semistars (sorry, Carlos Boozer), began play against China at a sold-out Wukesong Arena on Sunday.

The women, an assemblage of stars without equal, played their second game of the tournament about 22 hours later, also against China.

The men won by 31.

With Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Jason Kidd, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul watching, the women won by 45, 108-63.

Thirty-one and 45 against semidecent competition: That’s a pretty accurate gauge of the gap between the U.S. teams and the rest of the world.

Unless the women are even better.

Perhaps the best assemblage ever.

Now, they’re playing like it.

With a less-pedigreed cast of players, they lost to China in a tournament in April. Fully assembled and whirring along, this U.S. team simply destroyed China, announcing its presence with authority.

“This wasn’t a message, necessarily,” said point guard Sue Bird, coyly.

She must have missed the memo from Lisa Leslie: “We’ve come to China to, hopefully, dominate the world.”

They’re on their way.

They won the Diamond Tournament, an international tuneup, beating chief rival Australia, 71-67, in the final a week ago.

They drubbed the Czechs by 40 on Saturday.

They have gotten better. They played beautifully, unselfishly, aggressively … surprisingly?

“We didn’t play the way we wanted to in those friendlies,” Katie Smith said. “Tonight, we did.”

Yikes.

After four minutes of Chinese resistance the Americans went on a 23-0 run.

Their defense, often an issue – it was in 2006, when they took only bronze at the world championships – was suffocating, at least in the first half, when they managed six steals.

“It was really beautiful,” said China coach Thomas Maher, an Australian. “They really played wonderful basketball.”

Candace Parker (who dunks in warmups, from a standstill) and Sylvia Fowles – or, Kobe and Shaq, if you will – come off the bench. And rightly so, especially with Tina Thompson on the club and with Smith and Diana Taurasi playing committed defense.

Leslie, long the game’s most elegant ambassador, is mentoring Fowles; imagine if Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had sat Diesel down before O’Neal developed his bulldozer game.

Fowles, off the bench, scored 18 points and grabbed eight rebounds.

Dunks aside, Parker someday might be the best ever. At 6-4, she’s listed as a guard-forward-center; so, on a scale, she’s a 6-11 Kobe.

She’s also a role player here.

They are that good.

They respect Australia, which features hottie Lauren Jackson, perhaps the world’s best player now, and a fine pair of swing players.

That might be the best they face.

That won’t be enough.