"Redeem Team" passes with flying colors

If the US had managed to blow away Spain in late, late Saturday night/early, early Sunday morning's Olympic men's basketball final (which I fully anticipated, after the rout that was their first meeting), I was going to use this space to prolaim that, yes, indeed, we now had a second Team worthy of being called Dream. Unfortunately, Spain put up one hell of a fight, redemption for the Americans in danger until the final minute. Because of the astronomical improvement the rest of the world has made in basketball since the Holy Trinity (MJ, Magic, and Larry) and their Superfriends dominated the world 16 years ago, you can argue that the 2008 version of our national team is the most impressive we've had. The world had caught up to us in basketball, and we beat the world by an average of 27.9 points, which is the 1992 equivalent of about 55 points a game. But since they didn't dominate every team they faced, I'll hold off on calling them a Dream II. With many regrets. Just know that they came ... (link)