“Junk Ball”

Fortunately for the 2012 USA men’s basketball crew they didn’t pull a “Greece” job, or we’d probably be talking about the biggest FAIL in Olympics history right now.

Nicknamed “Redeem Team…continued” the 2012 squad cruised to a second straight gold medal, and further distanced USA basketball from the rest of the world and that awful, FAIL-filled 2004 Athens team that barely managed a bronze.

This 2012 Team USA was out for punching the other teams right where it counts (figuratively, that is – well…and literally, but more on that later). One of their victories included a 156-point beat down of global power Nigeria. They set a single game record for points scored. However, considering Nigeria doesn’t really know if they’ll have a government on any given day, I’m sure they have other things to worry about than practicing their lay-ups. It also extinguished the age-old myth that being black doesn’t mean you’re also good at basketball.

Their only real challenge came from the global power Gasol brothers in the gold medal game, who clearly exposed their weak inside presence. Spain actually had the lead a few times during the game thanks to global power Pau kicking in 24 points. He was probably just trying to show the Lakers they made the right decision by not trading him for someone better.

All of this led to Olympics Basketball FAIL #1…

A few of the 2012 Team (uhhhhhh-hum…Kobe and Lebron) started to feel pretty good about themselves because they beat global power Tunisia.

And yes, they actually “went there” and dared to compare themselves to the original Dream Team – the 1992 squad who crushed opponents by nearly 44 points a game. Ok true, they did have recent college grad Christian Laettner, but let’s not pretend like Anthony Davis was breaking any Olympic records this year other than failing to pluck his eyebrows.

The debate over “who’s better????” was laughable at best, and I dare say that the 2012 team would even struggle against the Dream Team III – the 1996 Olympic squad.

Well, now that debate can finally be settled…errrrrr, kind of. EA Sports announced that the next version – NBA 2K13 – would feature the 1992 Dream Team AND Team USA 2012. So now you can play as either team, give the other controller to your 8-year old brother, and then clobber him by 80+ points.

“See, told you [ insert team here ] is better!”

You could pretty much beat the Dream Team with the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats if you wanted to, so thanks EA Sports for that.

And going back to Tunisia…

We have our first WIN of 2012 Olympics Basketball:

Team USA was favored by 54 points over Tunisia in their preliminary game, but don’t tell that to Tunisia’s head coach. During his pre-game pep talk he delivered a pimp slap of epic proportions to one of his players. Even the Russian judges would give it a perfect ten.

Tunisia, you may be horrible at basketball, but you win gold for knowing how to deliver an awesome facial.

FAIL #2 – What’s with all the nut shots?

Flagrant fouls used to be somewhat of an art form, but now they’ve apparently turned into running up someone and punching them as hard as you can in the tenders.

It happened first to Team USA’s Carmelo Anthony in their preliminary round matchup against Argentina. After #15 drained a 3-pointer in his face, Facundo Campazzo congratulated him with a friendly cup check to Carmelo’s Anthonys.

And while it ranked about a 2.5 out of 5 on the junk punch scale, it set the trend for this:

Nic Batum of France delivered a Thor hammer to Spain’s Juan Carlos Navarro in the closing moments of their game.

Another huge WIN:

Team USA coach, Mike Krzyzewski actually celebrating their gold medal win a Chris Paul layup by actually jumping up and down and actually saying “Yeah!” while actually smiling. Yes people, the game wasn’t even over yet and cameras caught this extremely rare moment on video. In fact, the only video footage more rare was the wild Bactrian camels filmed eating snow in the Gobi desert from the BBC’s Planet Earth series.

Olympics Basketball FAIL #3 – How do you like your Sager?

I know, sounds like a beer commercial, but I’m actually referring to basketball court side reporter, Craig Sager, who’s known for wearing his brightly colored (often obnoxious) sport coats.

A huge FAIL to NBC for de-Sagerizing Craig and forcing him to wear an official Olympics polo shirt instead. They couldn’t even make him a royal blue sport coat? Note to NBC: When the ball Craig’s holding is more ugly than what he’s wearing, you have committed a major wardrobe malfunction. Like almost worse than Janet Jackson. Really, what is going to happen if you throw him out there in an orange suit? Is Ukraine going to give him a three-tenths deduction? FAIL. FAIL. FAIL.

A final Olympics Basketball FAIL:

Lebron refusing to sign an autograph because he’s too busy watching the Olympics listening to Beats by Dre…

Lebron Vogue-ing…