London 2012: USA Basketball Will Face a Tough Task After Injuries to Stars

Team USA Basketball will already be going into the 2012 London Games without Derrick Rose, Dwight Howard and Chauncey Billups, and the possibility remains that other players may suffer injuries in the playoffs or ask off the team after a long, tiring NBA title run.

Dwyane Wade may be asking off one way or another. From David Aldridge of NBA.com:

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Speaking of which, Dwyane Wade sounded slightly less than 100 percent certain he'll be in London no matter what, even after accepting the invite to what would be his third Olympics after being prodded by his 2008 Beijing teammates ("Kobe was like, 'if my old self is playing, you can,'" Wade said—and I'm sure Kobe said 'self' there, aren't you?) into putting the band back together one last time.

"I told them, I said, listen, I'm just going to see how I feel," Wade said last week. "This is about being healthy—I think, for all of us, going into the summer healthy—and taking it from there."

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Sure, Team USA is still rife with talent—LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul remain on the team, to name a few—but not having Rose and Howard around will definitely hurt.

And possibly not having Wade won't help.

Plus, what happens if the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat meet in the NBA Finals? What if that series goes seven games?

Will players like James, Wade, Durant, Westbrook, Chris Bosh and James Harden back out of the Olympics?

I'm not trying to be alarmist here—there is still plenty of talent on the United States squad and they should be the favorite headed into the tournament—but if there is one thing we've learned in recent years, it's that the Olympics are no longer a pushover.

Long gone are the days of the 1992 Dream Team. Internationally, the level of play has risen dramatically since then.

Argentina suits up Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola, Andres Nocioni and Carlos Delfino. Spain's team is to be feared, with Jose Calderon, Pau and Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez and Serge Ibaka all gunning for a Gold medal. Unfortunately for Spain, they will be without Ricky Rubio after he tore his ACL this year.

And don't forget about France, led by Tony Parker and including Nando de Colo, Nicolas Batum, Joakim Noah, Boris Diaw, Ronny Turiaf, Mickael Pietrus and Rodrigue Beaubois.

Team USA got a tough draw, with Argentina and France in their opening round group. Our American superstars know they are in for a dogfight at the Olympics.

Hopefully, most of those superstars will suit up and represent the Stars and Stripes. We'll need them.

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