HoopsHype.com Rumors

Total cost of the damages was 9,000 pounds (around $14,400). El Pais

FIBA, Spain, Olympics 

Sources say players were scolded for their behavior (by the Spanish Federation). Farewell parties are common when National Team players finish a tournament following one month and a half of preparation and competition. El Pais

FIBA, Spain, Olympics 

Will you support the national team at the European championship in Slovenia next year? Nowitzki: It's still too early to make a final decision about that. But you know how I feel. Supporting the team is very near and dear to me. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the Olympics in London. If I can use my experience to help the next basketball generation get to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, I'll give it some careful thought. It's an appealing idea. Is that enough for now? Der Spiegel

Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowitzki, Olympics, Germany 

Despite the Lakers' early playoff exit, Gasol became a driving force two months later at the Olympics. He got Spain to the gold-medal game and had 24 points, eight rebounds and seven assists in a surprisingly close 107-100 loss to Team USA. When it was over, Kobe Bryant found Gasol and hugged his Lakers teammate. "It was a tough moment for me," Gasol said at the time. "He came all the way to our bench. It was a great gesture from him." Said Bryant: "I just told him I loved him and he did a fantastic job. He played his heart out. I told him to get some rest because we've got a long [season] coming up. "He said he would. He said he's going to be ready." Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, USA Basketball, Spain, Olympics 

Ben Golliver: Batum said Claver told him he "understood" Navarro groin punch. Claver told me, laughing, "I understood, but I'm not going to do that." Twitter @blazersedge

Portland Trail Blazers, Victor Claver, Spain, France, Nicolas Batum, Olympics 

However, a bit of a controversy flared up surrounding Deng’s decision to not have wrist surgery, which allowed him to continue playing for the Bulls last season, represent Great Britain in the Olympics and start the upcoming season on time. Deng is clearly weary of all of the debate, but while he’s learned to take the questions about his health in stride, the longest-tenured member of the Bulls is also very firm in his rationale not to have the procedure. “It took two questions before [the media asked about] the wrist,” he said Monday, while seated at the podium for the team’s media day. “The wrist is the wrist. It is what it is. I’m expecting to be asked about it all year, but I’ve just got to go out and play, play as hard as I can, do what I can do. Whether it’s one arm or two arms or no arms, I’m going to be the best that I can be. That’s the goal, just go out there and play as hard as I can. It felt great in the Olympics. Since I’ve been back practicing, it’s been feeling great and so far, so good. CSN Chicago

Chicago Bulls, Luol Deng, Injuries, Great Britain, Olympics 

The strongest assertion: Batum said that he has received gratitude and support from around the globe, even from members of the basketball community. "I won't say any names but Spanish people and Spanish media were truly mad at me on Twitter," Batum acknowledged. "I got some bad things, trust me. [But] people all around the world, on Twitter, or media, or people, even coaches and players from the other teams, thanked me." Blazers Edge

Portland Trail Blazers, Twitter, Spain, France, Nicolas Batum, Olympics 

Why? For upholding the Olympics spirit? For getting in a good lick on Navarro? Because Spain had it coming? "I won't say what they told me, but trust me a lot of people thanked me," he repeated. "I won't say, but they just thanked me. Trust me, a lot, a lot of people. Not especially from France but from everywhere. I won't say that's good. I'm not happy or glad about it." Blazers Edge

Portland Trail Blazers, Twitter, Spain, France, Nicolas Batum, Olympics 

Ben Golliver: Blazers F Nicolas Batum tells me he was aiming for Juan Carlos Navarro's arm and not his groin. Twitter @blazersedge

Portland Trail Blazers, Spain, France, Nicolas Batum, Olympics, Juan Carlos Navarro 

Jerry Zgoda: Rubio on KLove's gold medal: "He will have the silver medal in 2016, don't worry." Twitter @JerryZgoda

Minnesota Timberwolves, Ricky Rubio, USA Basketball, Spain, Kevin Love, Olympics 

It must have been even more frustrating watching the Olympics on TV. You were on the 2010 FIBA World Championship team. Why don’t you think you got an invite to the Olympic team? How surprised were you? Do you think the ankle injury played a factor? Stephen Curry: Oh yeah I was surprised. I couldn’t believe it. I was very frustrated I didn’t get an invite, and I never got to have a conversation with them about it. Coach K and Mr. Colangelo put together a great roster for the World Championships in 2010, and I was fortunate to be a part of it and win a gold medal. I thought I played well and I thought I’d get a shot at making the Olympic roster but it didn’t happen for me. I definitely had it in my sights. When they started making decisions in April, I was out with the ankle injury, but the invite decisions came down before that. The Big Lead

Golden State Warriors, USA Basketball, Stephen Curry, Olympics 

Jared Zwerling: Iguodala told me yesterday the biggest thing that surprised him about any Olympic teammate was how funny Melo was. "Radio Raheem!" #Knicks Twitter

Denver Nuggets, New York Knicks, Andre Iguodala, Carmelo Anthony, USA Basketball, Olympics 

Kobe Bryant asked about what would happen if Dream Teams in Barcelona(’92) and London(’12) has a chance to go against each other with their full strenght. He said that: “I like our chances, It’s always interesting because if you’re talking about playing one game. If you look at the teams we have this year we had some incredible talented players in our team. Dream team(’92) is a team that we looked up to and we all admired, especially myself. So it’s always tough to say we’d beat them. We have so much respect for them but at the same time you know that you got bunch of guys in your team who are just as good and as competitive. It’d be a lot of fun, I’m getting excited thinking about it.” TrendBasket

Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant, USA Basketball, Olympics 

There was one — and only one — Dream Team. So that is the American view. But not everyone is American. As all knowledgable American basketball fans know, Lithuania is the country that has competed at a high level most consistently over the past six Olympics. Lithuania produced Arvydas Sabonis, Sarunas Marciulionis, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Linas Kleiza, Jonas Valenciunas, and Egle, among others. And now a film has been made about the 1992 Lithuanian national team, entitled “The Other Dream Team.” SheridanHoops

Linas Kleiza, Arvydas Sabonis, Olympics, Lithuania, Sarunas Jasikevicius 

Russian team leader Andrei Kirilenko plans to play not just in Rio, but also in the 2020 Olympics. BasketNews.lt

Minnesota Timberwolves, Andrei Kirilenko, Russia, Olympics 

Jose Manuel Calderon: The Paralympic Games have ended! Congrats to all the athletes,medalists, and specially proud of the 42 medals that Spain has won! @COE_es Twitter

Toronto Raptors, Jose Manuel Calderon, Olympics 

What happened in 1972 to the United States' Olympics men's basketball team was a shame, a scandal, a ripoff and a nightmare, at least from the U.S. point of view. It was not, however, a tragedy. Not then, not now. The tragedy at those Munich Games was the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists. The members of that '72 U.S. team have carried that truth with them across 40 years, no matter how cheated they felt or how bitter their basketball memories. The tail end of the last game is notorious by now: In what otherwise would have been a 50-49 victory for the championship, a team from the Soviet Union was allowed to try once, twice, three times on a final possession. NBA.com

USA Basketball, Olympics, Munich, Tom Burleson 

Near the end of a news conference, almost as an afterthought, Reed asked Tom Burleson, the 7-foot-2 center, to relate his brush with the terrorists. The youngest member of the '72 squad came the closest to the politics and horrors that crowded out athletics from that Olympics. Burleson had spent the day -- Sept. 5, 1972 -- acting the tourist in Munich with his fiancée. They visited cathedrals and the Black Forest and even stopped at a McDonald's. Then he rode the train back to the Olympic Village -- and was surprised when it stopped short of the station. The passengers were ordered off outside the security barricades around the athletes' temporary residences. From a car at the end of the train, Burleson sensed a long wait checking through the gate, with dozens or hundreds of people required to produce three forms of identification. Across a parking lot, he spotted a garage-door opening he and others had slipped through in the Games' earlier, calmer days. So he beckoned to two Italian players to follow him out the back. They cut across the parking lot. NBA.com

USA Basketball, Olympics, Munich, Tom Burleson 

Said Burleson: "He said, 'Son, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. We're in the process of bringing hostages out right now. I've got to have you stand against that wall, face it, put your hands on it, and let us bring the hostages out.' "I thought, 'Oh man,'" Burleson said. "As I looked to my left, the two Italian players were on the ground with guns to their backs. I had a rifle in my back." NBA.com

USA Basketball, Olympics, Munich, Tom Burleson 

Then Burleson heard the shuffling of the hostages feet as they were brought out. "And I could hear them crying. I could ... hear ... them ... crying!" At this point, four decades later, a 20-year-old kid turned 60-year-old man began to sob. He leaned back and tried to breathe. He bent forward, burying his face in his hands, his back and shoulders heaving. Jim Brewer, to Burleson's left, placed a hand on the big man's back, then his knee. "They didn't want to die," Burleson said in gulps. "They didn't want ... to DIE!" NBA.com

USA Basketball, Olympics, Munich, Tom Burleson, Jim Brewer