Pro athletes have no business in the Olympics. Our dream team should be pulled from college and even high school level. Kobe and Lebron are multi millionaires with all the glory already... Give the spot to some hungry true amateurs and we'll have some true competition instead of guaranteed gold medals for an all star NBA team. Jim Rennick Thorpe out
Prior to 1952, there was only one kind of athlete allowed in the Olympic Games-- Winter and Summer. Then the Soviet Union and its 14 Communist allies entered the games. All their athletes were fully supported by their governments. None ever held a job. They trained 8 hours a day, 365 days a year. They won most of the gold, silver and bronze during the 1970s and 1980s. None of these athletes were amateur, and yet they were allowed to compete in the Olympics (which made athletes sign pledges that they were amateurs) because the communist athletes were not definable, they were not "pros" like Michael Jordan. It was unfair. So in 1986, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) changed its rule book (Olympic Charter) to allow "all the world's great male and female athletes to participate." Personally I am fine with pros being in the Olympics as long as their corporate sponsors don't affect players like when the dream team almost boycotted the medal ceremony in Barcelona because the team's Nike loyalties and paraphernalia clashed with the podium, which sported the corporate symbol of the American team sponsor, Reebok.