TEAM USA MENS BASKETBALL TEAM ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2012 OLYMPICS!

Earlier tonight via yahoo.news, it was announced that the 12 men for the basketball team have been chosen from amongst the various teams of the NBA to represent the USA in the forthcoming London Olympic games. Here they are, along with a few stats including their heights and weights:

[You may need to click on the word link that says "Read More" to the see the rest of this article!]


1. Kobe Bryant       [Age 33,  6 feet 6 inches tall, 205 pounds] - LA LAKERS
2. Lebron James     [Age 27,  6 feet 8 inches tall, 250 pounds] - MIAMI HEAT
3. Kevin Durant        [Age 23,  6 feet 9 inches tall, 235 pounds] - OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER
4. Russell Westbrook    [Age 23,  6 feet 3 inches tall, 187 pounds]  - OK CITY THUNDER
5. James Harden            [Age 22,  6 feet 5 inches tall, 220 pounds] - OK CITY THUNDER
6. Carmelo Anthony     [Age 28,  6 feet 8 inches tall, 230 pounds] - NY KNICKS
7. Tyson Chandler        [Age 29, 7 feet 1 inches tall, 240 pounds] - NY KNICKS
8. Blake Griffin           [Age 23,   6 feet 10 inches tall, 251 pounds] - LA CLIPPERS
9. Chris Paul                [Age 27,  6 feet 0 inches tall, 175 pounds] - LA CLIPPERS
10. Deron Williams     [Age 28,  6 feet 3 inches tall, 209 pounds] - UTAH JAZZ
11. Kevin Love          [Age 23,  6 feet 10 inches tall, 260 pounds] - MN TIMBERWOLVES
12. Andre Iguodala    [Age 26,  6 feet 6 inches tall, 207 pounds] - PA 76ERS

EDIT: Anthony Davis [6 feet 10 inches tall] has been brouht in to replace Blake Griffin, due to a left-knee injury that Griffin suffered prior to the exhibition games.

Considering the stats above, those NBA players make quite an impressive team. Note that OKC THUNDER is the only team that supplied three players to the squad. And those three players are damn good at what they do, having made it all the way to the 2012 NBA Finals earlier this year. Lebron James is the only one from the current 2012 NBA Championship team of the MIAMI HEAT [we talked about how he won his first Ring over Here]. Although James Harden's legendary beard make him look like an old timer, Kobe is the oldest one on the Olympic squad; but don't just label him as a grandpa yet. He still does some stuff on the court that only he alone can pull off. He is also the only 5-time NBA Champion on the entire team, having won that golden trophy and the Ring back in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2009 and 2010. The pic below shows Kobe after his 4th trophy, while the other pics show him with Micheal Jordan, the living Legend.

Some have compared Michael and Kobe.... Honestly those two men are from two disparate eras. I believe that Michael [who won 6 NBA Championships], in his prime, was greater than Kobe. Yet Micheal has said in the past that the only player to ever come close to him as far as a skill / talent comparison is Kobe.
  
The previous two USA Olympic Men's basketball teams won the bronze medal back in 2004 and the gold medals back in 2008. Kobe and Lebron were on both of those teams. Dwayne Wade & Dwight Howard are not going to be on the 2012 Olympic team, due to injuries. I hope the players from rest of the world are ready to deal with Pro-NBA players that do stuff like this just for fun:



Check out the blog archive featuring Blake Griffin [the guy in the clip above] and his winning dunk over a car, from the 2011 NBA Slam Dunk Contest over HERE!