U.S Olympics Men’s Team Ready to Recapture Gold

by Tyrone Hall (BPRW)

What do you get when you take 12 NBA superstar athletes and bring them together to compete for a Gold Medal? You have the U.S Olympic Men’s basketball team. If you combine all their talent, skill and experience you have one gifted roster. When you create a roster with some of the NBA’s best players to compete against countries like Spain and Puerto Rico it seems almost certain the U.S will easily defeat them.

Alas it has been 8 years since the U.S Men’s team captured the Gold Medal in 2000. This year’s team is preparing to take the competition by surprise and regain a gold medal. Just recently the roster for the competition was announced. The roster is comprised of season MVPKobe Bryant and scoring championLebron James. Joining these two prolific scorers are Jason Kidd, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Carlos Boozer, Dwight Howard, Michael Redd, Deron Williams, Tayshaun Prince and Chris Bosh.

Over recent years, the United States has been less dominant in the tournament against international teams and has left spectators wondering what happened to NBA players being the best worldwide. Reason being, the international squads have improved and made the tournament more competitive and some of the players from the NBA play for their native country’s team in the global competition.

In 2004, the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team finished third and was awarded a bronze medal. Yet prior to placing third in the tournament they had loss three games. This was the most they lost in all their previous appearances. After losing those three games, the league felt it needed to change its philosophy in order to have a more balanced roster. So each year the committee chooses players based on what they contributed to their national team during the season and the roster is put together at least a month before training camp instead of in two weeks.

Playing for the U.S Mens Team is something professional athletes dream of doing and bringing home a gold medal is the ultimate goal. The Men’s squad is scheduled to begin training camp in Las Vegas on July 20th-25th. Their first game is August 10th against China in Beijing.

As a fan of the sport, I’m looking forward to the style of play the U.S team uses against their opponents.