Is it time to take basketball out of the Olympics?

Question

With the blowout scores the US is putting up, why do other countries even try? Are they there for the chance at a silver? Do they want the opportunity to play with Americans? Not all team sports are in the Olympics anyway, why have basketball? When you consider that the salaries of this US team is higher than the GNP of many countries. Too me it is just a joke. Let's put tug-of-war into the olympics!

Answer 1

Removing a sport because of one country's dominance is sour grapes.  Do we need to also remove badminton and weightlifing because China is so dominant there too?

Also, in case you forgotten, the U.S. b-ball team HAS lost in the Olympics before, which serves as a counterbalance because it is such a huge upset story when that happens and the winning country's team is just that much more fulfilled.  

Answer 2

You must have been asleep during the 04 Olympics when US took the Bronze medal.

The talent of other nations is growing.  That's why there such of increase in international players in the NBA.  Competition is getting better.

Answer 3

yes, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD its boring. no wonder that and softball are getting kicked out of the olympics for sure, due to 'worldwide appeal'. of course no one cares about it, takes too much space anyway. cant wait for cleaner, better 2012 olympic in London :D

Answer 4

no. i love basketball.

Answer 5

Why would you remove one of the world's most popular sports?

Basketball is truly international, experiencing huge growth all over the world, and other national teams are much better now than 8 or 12 years ago, because more of their top players have experience playing in the NBA.

Guys like Germany's Dirk Nowtzki, China's Yao Ming and Argentina's Manu Ginobili (the leading scorer in the tournament) are bona fide NBA stars.  Then you've US players who are playing for other countries like Chris Kaman playing for Germany (even though he probably hasn't seen German soil since he was 2 years old, lol)

The issue of  amateur vs pro is a sticky issue- because many other countries have real national teams funded by the government. If it were made amateur only, would things be more competitive or less?  Remember, other countries would lose their pro stars, too!

Would anyone in China or Greece be excited to see college kids who are unknowns, or does the world want to see best unternationally-known athletes in their sports, like Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Kerri Walsh, Michael Phelps, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James etc?

The point of the Olympics isn't to attempt artificial equalization of the talent pool, but to simply let the best compete, see who wins and enjoy the spectacle!

Softball is being removed because there isn't much interest outside of the USA. The same cannot be said about basketball.

Answer 6

Replace it with Rugby, which is a bigger international sport.

Basketball, whilst experiencing growth in a few countries, is too American to be global.  A number of players from outside the US are playing in the domestic American competition, the NBA.  But this is the exception, not the rule.  The few players that succeed, do not make it global.  

For example, the NBL in Australia is on the verge of bankruptcy.  So that has reduced Basketball to a minnows sport in Australia.  We are also playing the yanks in the quarter finals of the Olympics, which will no doubt be telecast live in the US.  We will be lucky to see some snippets of the game in the late news.  The Aussie media would rather show us pictuers of our swimmers at a party.  (Except for Nick D'arcy)

Rugby has a huge World Cup, something Basketball doesn't have and is played in more countries around the world.  Only Football is a bigger sport.

Axe Basketball and replace it with Rugby.

Answer 7

They need to make it an amateur sport.  The dream team is a joke....nothing but a bunch of spoiled millionaires who feel they need to take a medal from amateurs because they are narcissists.

Use the soccer rules.  All under 23, but allow 1 player over that age (less than the 3 for soccer of course).

Answer 8

except for the fact that we only got a bronze last olympics I would agree.

Answer 9

basketball is almost as big a sport in china as it is in the usa.  billions of people won't be happy.  and it's only a blowout because the us team will do anything to get the gold back

Answer 10

Yes..they are giving the boot to Baseball and that event is much more competitive.

Answer 11

Yes,it's so boring