Since basketball became an official Olympic sport in 1936 the game has drawn more fans at every Olympics.
In the past few decades, Europe has joined America in its mania for basketball fever, as the level of play outside the US threatens to outshine top teams where the sport was born. The international level of play is top notch and the games are fun to watch even if you're not a BBall fanatic.
2012 Olympic basketball fast facts
Venue: North Greenwich Arena 1 Dates: July 28 – August 12, 2012 Athletes in competition: 288
In 2012, watch for the U.S. to defend its gold medal standing at the top of the heap in world basketball with another "dream team" starting lineup including LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant, Blake Griffin, Kevin Durant, and more superstars of the NBA.
Meanwhile, keep up with hoops updates and events with these sites focused on Olympic greatness...
More about Olympic basketball around the Web:
Basketball | Olympic sports | London 2012 - Entertaining overview including fun facts, background trivia and history together with news, photos, related blog posts.,
USA
Basketball - The official site of the U.S. men's and women's team, loaded with facts, news and stories covering the USA Olympics basketball teams. Players bios, rosters, events schedules and more...
NBC Olympics - Basketball - Full U.S. TV coverage with scores & updates, photos & video, athlete profiles & feature stories.
UK Basketball - The official site of the U.K. Olympics basketball teams starts off with a brief history of the game including the fact that the man who originated the game was British. Links to players bios, rosters, event schedules.
Basketball Australia - The latest news on national teams, player profiles, complete archive of related scores and stats for men's and women's Olympics basketball, information on national junior teams, resource library and related links.
China Basketball - Very active blog spot and web site covering Chinese basketball and basketball players. The inside track to news on the Chinese Olympics team.
Interbasket - Tidbits and predictions along with players to watch for and in-depth sections for each country.
WNBA - US Women's Basketball organization site has plenty of information on the players and news a special Olympics section promised as the Summer Games kick off.