Great Britain is not a basketball powerhouse.
But as the Olympic games are in London this year their usually forgotten national basketball team — overshadowed by the likes of Spain, France and Greece — gets a spot in the big dance. British hoopsters are Olympics bound.
And they will have three NBA players on the squad, the team announced — Chicago’s Luol Deng, Detroit’s Ben Gordon and Charlotte center Byron Mullins are on the nation’s preliminary list of 21 players. Hard to think any of them doesn’t make the squad if healthy.
Great Britain is not going to medal, and almost certainly won’t even get out of pool play. But there were concerns that they could embarrass themselves. They had to prove to FIBA in international tournaments they even deserved the host’s berth.
With those three guys, they are not going to embarrass themselves. And Gordon is even the kind of guy on a hot day can almost win a game by himself.
This is going to be a fun summer tournament (and you can keep up with all of it at PBT… but we’ve got to get through the NBA playoffs before we turn our focus there.
