Redeem Team

As someone who normally does not watch or get into the Olympics, this was a strange year for me. Because of the fun of watching Michael Phelps, and the hotness of Nastia Liukin, I found myself actually watching much of the Olympics.

But of course, I planned on watching the basketball portion of the Olympics regarless, so I digress. I must admit, the dominance of this team DID surprise me a little. I expected them to win gold, but I expected them to have a lot more trouble with Argentina, and at least a little more trouble with Greece and Spain.

Now, obviously, Manu going down with his ankle injury made the Argentina game a little easier, but even in the first quarter, it was quite obvious the way that game was going to go down. Not even Manu could save that game, the Redeem Team pretty much dominated that game for 3 quarters, and dominated the world in the tournament.

Now, about that title, the Redeem Team. I think that is a decent title. I think that because this team had to do a few things. They had to not only redeem the dominance of American hoops, but also the image of American hoops.

Now, I am not going to sit here and say that everyone on this team is a boy scout or anything, because clearly Melo and CP3 are no such things (you may find Paul a strange name for me to mention, but frankly, my NBA loyalties are too great, and I quite simply hate Chris Paul). However, this team handled themselves very well in Bejing by every report, and they won the right way. They wanted to play Argentina, they wanted to play Spain, they wanted to dominate the teams that had a chance to beat them. They didn't want to win the gold by default, by some team like China pulling of a miracle against one of these teams. They wanted to beat the best, and they did, as a matter of fact, they dominated the best the world had to offer. And for that, this team should be very proud.

But on another note, people have begun to post things about comparing this team to the Dream Team. Stop. Just stop. This team would be blown out of the water by the Dream Team. Frankly, you don't even have to get into deep analysis here. One of those teams had Michael in his prime, the other doesn't. Pretty much that simple.