Team USA Basketball is almost everyone’s favorite in the 2012 London Olympics. With the team composed of the greatest basketball players in the world like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant, they seem almost unstoppable when they’re out on the floor. Having won the gold medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics against Spain, they’re back at it again with a couple of adjustments. They acquired the number one college draft pick, Anthony Davis, and the lost Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh due to injuries. Nonetheless they’ve grown so bold that Kobe Bryant was confident that the current Team USA Basketball team could defeat the 1992 Dream team with Michael Jordon, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. Many of the Dream Team members could say otherwise.
Team USA Basketball had a 5-0 record in the Exhibition Games, and has won France, Tunisia, and Nigeria, where none of the opposing teams seemed much of challenge. They recently broke the Olympic record when playing Nigeria by raising the bar of most points scored in a game to 156, keeping Nigeria to a mere 73. It was that kind of night: an 83 point blow-out, more than twice the opposing score. Furthermore, after defeating Tunisia and shaking hands with one another, a Tunisian Basketball player, Mohamed Hdidane, approached Kobe Bryant with a sneaker and asked him to sign it. Of course, Bryant welcomingly signed it, which showed how well known he is to the world.
At times, during the basketball games, it didn’t seem fair that a group of professionals were allowed to play in the Olympics. Basketball is one of the few sports in the Olympics where professionals are allowed to play but many are opposed to this rule. Eric Chi, an avid basketball fan, claimed “It’s always fun to see the best [professional basketball players] play in the same team, with one goal in mind, to bring home the gold. But at times, the games seem unfair to amateurs from foreign countries. It’s no different from a group of amateurs playing against the NBA All Star Team combined.”
An 83 point blowout game is obviously ridiculous and at times humiliating to an Olympic basketball team that has prepared and practiced for four years. The only team that comes close to competing is their previous finals opponent, Spain, which also has professional players such as Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez, and Ricky Rubio. But considering the number of times team USA basketball has won the gold medals since the sport was first introduced to the Olympics in 1936, it won’t be much of a problem for Team USA fans.
AP Image ID: 596025379211
Daniel Lee
Daniel Kangmin Lee is a 12th grader at LACES High School and a returning student editor for the JSR program.
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