This of course is hypothetical, but America is 1000 times more important to the team's success than the country of Nigeria. I'm not talking about the governments, just the society, infrastructure, culture etc.
People complain about Greece, Italy and Canada not in the Olympic basketball tournament but the truth is there're more deserving players who can't participate. America probably has thousands of players who are better than the Chinese team, so technically U.S. could field like 100 basketball teams to play in the Olympics. Why is that not allowed, while these players playing for another country is encouraged? If they had a choice, would the Ike Diogus want to play for the US or Nigeria? Becky Hammon won a bronze for Russia but put a hand over her heart when the American anthem was playing.
I think Olympics should just let a country field as many teams/individuals as possible if they are capable, and let the best players/teams participate. For example, America could send Team New York, Team Texas, or even Team Chicago, if it comes down to that. Just like FIBA 3X3 (I believe?) This will also eliminate the terrible problem of naturalizing players who have no desire to fit in culturally with the countries they are representing.
Basketball is not that bad because FIBA only allows 1 naturalized players per team, but some other sports like table tennis in order to have more "parity" let western teams use as many naturalized players as they can find, and the end result is that more than 1/2 of the European ping pong Olympians are Chinese, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_...Women%27s_team It's effectively encouraging all Chinese players who can't make the China NT to become Europeans/Americans/Aussies and what is the point of that? Is this the Olympic spirit?
People complain about Greece, Italy and Canada not in the Olympic basketball tournament but the truth is there're more deserving players who can't participate. America probably has thousands of players who are better than the Chinese team, so technically U.S. could field like 100 basketball teams to play in the Olympics. Why is that not allowed, while these players playing for another country is encouraged? If they had a choice, would the Ike Diogus want to play for the US or Nigeria? Becky Hammon won a bronze for Russia but put a hand over her heart when the American anthem was playing.
I think Olympics should just let a country field as many teams/individuals as possible if they are capable, and let the best players/teams participate. For example, America could send Team New York, Team Texas, or even Team Chicago, if it comes down to that. Just like FIBA 3X3 (I believe?) This will also eliminate the terrible problem of naturalizing players who have no desire to fit in culturally with the countries they are representing.
Basketball is not that bad because FIBA only allows 1 naturalized players per team, but some other sports like table tennis in order to have more "parity" let western teams use as many naturalized players as they can find, and the end result is that more than 1/2 of the European ping pong Olympians are Chinese, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_...Women%27s_team It's effectively encouraging all Chinese players who can't make the China NT to become Europeans/Americans/Aussies and what is the point of that? Is this the Olympic spirit?
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