NBA Players gearing up for the Olympics

We are getting closer to the date when the Olympics come again and give the sheer pleasure of sports watching in one big tournament where all sportsmen represent their counties. Who am I kidding? Hehe...

Olympics is by far the biggest paradox of the sporting world. A tournament which has pretty much every sport played around the world
and yet gets less TV coverage than the Football World Cup. It is quite boring somehow. The idea of leagues has taken over the world and national sense is somehow not there anymore.

Anyway, this post is not for my rambling in Olympics but for the NBA players now moving into the Olympic mode. That is the only sport I really follow in the Olympics and maybe a bit of hockey. The NBA Dream Team from the USA is going to get together again and start trying to switch from the NBA style to International rules. Get used to the ball and the way its played and what are the differences. It is amazing why the US team doesn't win gold every year. With the talent we see in the NBA season, they shouldn't even play and just give them the gold.

But it has been proven that it is not true. Argentina led by the NBA All Star from the Spurs, Manu Ginobili won Olymipic gold in 2004 and would be looking forward to defend the title. However, he is on the injury list with ankle trouble which took him out of the finals as well. The national team would want him to play though.

Also on the injury list are Kobe Bryant (US) with a pinkie finger, Pau Gasol (SPAIN) with back pains and Chris Kaman (GERMANY) who recently got German nationality and German fans were surely looking forward to him teaming up with Dirk Nowitzki.

The biggest name though would be Yao Ming (CHINA) who is suffering from left foot injury which he just had surgery on. I say biggest because he is from the hosts team. Many people are counting on him and the crowd support to get Basketball Gold this Olympics.

Lets hope the US put the Dream Team together and we are able to see some good sweat on the basketball courts this summer in the Beijing Olympics 2008.