Olympic Basketball Bounces Off

July 24, 2012; Barcelona, SPAIN; USA forward LeBron James (6) during the first half of an exhibition game against Spain in preparation for the 2012 London Olympic Games at Palau Sant Jordi. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-US PRESSWIRE

The London 2012 Olympics have finally rolled around. This year’s Team USA looks like it will provide the world with some first class Basketball and hopefully bring back some gold. The Women’s games start on Saturday July 28 and the men’s start on Sunday July 29. It is expected that the men’s Team USA will win gold again, but they start off in a group with their two biggest rivals: Argentina (who won in 2004) and Lithuania have their own ‘dream team’.

If you’ve been too busy at work or involved in playing OnlinePoker.com to notice, there has a been a huge debate on whether this year’s team is better or the famous Dream Team of 1992. Now we have Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, and back then there was Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. There has been a well-publicized spat between Bryant and Johnson after the current player said at a training squad meeting in Las Vegas that today’s team could beat the famous ’92 squad.

Johnson replied that there is ‘no comparison’ between today’s squad and the Dream Team of which he was a member. By the end of their careers, the original dream team included 11 Hall of Famers and won 6 Olympic games by an average of more than 43 points.
The ’92 Olympics were also the year that the Bronze medal winners were sponsored by the Grateful Dead. Lithuania had just become independent of Russia and just changed from a Communist to Free Market system and was out of money as a result. The Grateful Dead sponsored the team to go to Barcelona and the team turned up to pick up their bronze medal in tie-dye outfits. The Lithuanian basketball team still have a connection with the ‘Dead and fans still wear tie dye to this day.