It May Be Time To Give The Olympics Back To The College Players
August 16, 2008 by Kevin Hunter
Filed under Basketball
Anybody with a pulse has probably been keeping up with what’s been going on at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
The United States basketball team destroyed Spain today 119-82 to advance to the medal round. This should come as no surprise. The U.S. has been abusing the competition since they got off the plane in Beijing and will no doubt bring home the gold and make up for the sins of the 2004 team that had to settle for the bronze.
Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Carmello Anthony and other members of the “Redeemed Team” are showing the rest of the world that you don’t mess with the U.S. when it comes to basketball.
Ok, so we’ve sent our best professionals to go and beat up on countries like Spain, Greece, China and Angola.
Big deal!
We used to send our best college players to do that. We did for decades and were very successful. But after we came home with the bronze in 1988 with college players, the powers that be thought it was time to send in the big guns and create the ultimate “Dream Team”. That team featured the likes of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, John Stockton, Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan. It may have been the biggest one-sided battle against the world since the U.S. invaded Grenada 25 years ago.
The U.S. has always been a basketball country and always will be. Having said that, I think that if we went back to sending our best college players to Beijing we still would come back home with the gold.
Imagine a college Dream Team or Redeem Team featuring Kevin Love, O.J. Mayo, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, D.J. Augustin, Brook Lopez, Joe Alexander, Brandon Rush, Tyler Hansbrough, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Roy Hibbert, and I’ll even throw in George Hill.
Do you agree that this team would not be able to challenge the rest of the world? They may not destroy the field as the current team is doing, but they are certainly good enough to win the gold.
If we are so determined to send in our professionals, then why not add a few college players or go half pro and half college? After Beijing we would have made our point. We’re the best and everyone knows it. It’s now time to reconsider allowing some of our best amateurs back in the Olympics.
