It's Dream Team Time!

The 1992 US Olympic Gold Medal winning Dream Team is a finalist for enshrinement in the Basketball Hall of Fame this year. The timing of this announcement is so perfect with the Olympics starting tonight.

Perhaps this year's Dream Team will take home the gold in honor of... oh... wait... no.

Can someone please explain to me why basketball is part of the SUMMER Olympics? It's a winter sport. You don't see hockey during the Summer Olympics, do you? Or baseball during the Winter Olympics? So, um, what the heck?

As an outsider, here's what I see (and this is one reason why I don't get as excited for the Olympics as I used to):

Hockey is played during the Winter Olympics because the NHL is willing to take a break during the middle of the season (and cancel All-Star festivities... ).

Basketball is played during the Summer Olympics because the NBA refuses to halt their season mid-stream for the Olympics.

Baseball was* played during the Summer Olympics despite the fact that MLB refused to pause their season.

*Baseball is no longer a part of the Summer Olympics line-up beginning with the London Olympics of 2012 because Major League Baseball refuses to halt their season to send Major Leaguers over (thought they do send the top minor leaguers who are Gold Medal contenders every year and actually won it in 2000 in Australia). Ironically, softball is no longer a part of the Olympics because they were too good (again, ironically, they did finally lose a game when Japan beat them in the Gold Medal game two years ago, but don't get me started on how shady that playoff format was because I am still furious over the fact that each team lost just one game (the US beat Japan, who then had to win an elimination game to get back to the Championship) and yet the US got the Silver, despite finishing with a 1-1 record against Japan. If it was really a double-elimination tournament, like supposedly it was, there should have been one more game to decide the champion).

ADB just informed me that the NHL is likely to stop doing Olympic Breaks. It makes sense since that break doesn't really benefit them in anyway. Do you think that will cause the IOC to drop hockey? It hasn't dropped basketball...

ADB also makes the argument that basketball is played during the Summer Olympics because that's when International Tournaments are played. That makes sense, but, you know what? International baseball tournaments are played during the winter (ie: The Pan-American Games). Can anyone else say double-standard? I'm at a loss.

So tell me how any of this makes sense.

It's almost as bad as the BCS.