Team Redeemed?

Back from a near month long bout with writer's block. Wish I had a better excuse than that. Maybe something like announcing my retirement, changing my mind, contemplating taking a $20 million memorabilia deal with Facebook, only to decide I was coming back. But alas, my life is not nearly that exciting.

Luckily, the team known as Redeem stoked my literary fire.

After watching the U.S. Men's basketball squad's gold medal game against Spain, I couldn't help but liken this team to MJ's "Bad" album - over hyped and certainly no "Thriller".

While the Redeem Team sported a roster that featured at least the four best players in the world (Kobe, LeBron, D. Howard, CP3), to frame this team as one devoted to redemption is ridiculous. The scary thing is, the Redeem Team almost gave the gold medal game away to Spain. Early in the fourth quarter, the score stood at 91-89, Redeem Team.

Under no circumstances should the best NBA players ever lose against international competition. There is just too much talent. Most people chalked up the U.S. failures in 2004 and 2006 to clashing egos and teams hastily put together. But the truth is those teams lacked the patriotism needed to excel on an international level. They simply didn't care enough.

As far as international basketball has progressed since the original Dream Team dominated the 1992 Olympics, it still isn't anything to brag about. Take the silver medal winning Spain team. Their best player, Pau Gasol, is a fringe all-star at best. He's no superstar. Aside from Jose Calderon, no other player on Spain would even crack an NBA starting 5. The same goes for every other team that played in the Olympics. No superstars. Not Dirk. Not Yao. Not Vaginobli. Some very good players, yes. But mostly guys that couldn't cut it in the league.

Unless USA basketball wants to get cute and put together a team consisting of Ricky Davis, Melo, Birdman, Robert Swift and Ron Artest, there really should be no scenario where the US men's team doesn't come home with gold. Redemption? More like a duty.