So I'm watching the Olympic games opening ceremony last night, but Bob Costas gets to me after a while and the endless procession and trivia references gets a bit boring. So I'm flippin' thru the photos of the USA Olympic Men Basketball team and come across this photo on Lebron James a tune up against Turkey.
What's going on here? A better question is who thought this picture was flattering enough to post on the web?
I was more than a little perplexed when Sammy was kicked off the Canadian Olympic team. The way it was announced was so bizarre. Team Canada Head coach Leo Rautins, drafted by the 76ers in '83 (the 1st Canadian ever drafted in the 1st round), tried to make it sound like it was mutual. But his description of events made it clear that Leo didn't think Sammy's head was in the game.
We've all seen Sammy have 'episodes' in the past where he just stops making sense. Franken-Sammy made an appearance during one of the Sixers best stretches of basket ball last season when he declared "I don't know what my role on this team is". But the team Canada thing was a surprise. Sammy played so hard for team Canada during the FIBA Americas championship last year that he was hurt coming in to training camp.
But there was no word from Sammy about what happened.
Well a writer from SLAM has gotten Dalembert to speak up about the incident.
Sammy
“It was crazy. Just crazy. The thing about it was there was no warning. It was a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with basketball. It started with my high school coach being with me. He was there with me last summer and nothing was said. There was no problem and all of the sudden I was being made the scapegoat. It was, Sam doesn’t do this. Sam doesn’t do that. The media would wait for me after personal workouts with my coach. I worked hard even after practice. You know me Mike. I hoped they would come with something better than that.”
I'll leave it to you to read the rest of the article here.
But it sounds like Leo Rautins was a big part of the problem. The truth is always somewhere in between. I had feared that Fraken-Sammy was making an extended appearance. But I say its Team Canada's loss. No Olympics for them. I didn't want him coming into the season banged up again this year anyway.
