Ben Gordon Joins British Olympic Team

Even though Ben Gordon grew up in New York, the fact that he was born in London makes him eligible to represent Great Britain in the Olympics. In fact, British Basketball has been recruiting him for the 2012 Games for quite some time, hoping that he'll join current teammate Luol Deng in representing his English roots. As Deng explained it last year, Gordon was putting off a decision in hopes that he might be able to represent the U.S. instead.

At least, that was the plan; sometime in the last 12 months reality apparently set in and Gordon realized that representing the U.K. will be the only chance he gets to be an Olympic athlete. From the AP:

British Basketball named Gordon and Bulls teammate Luol Deng to its 33-man squad Tuesday to play in Eurobasket qualifiers.

"He has been very positive about playing and we are going to meet with him again in Chicago within the next two weeks," British Basketball performance manager Ron Wuotila said of Gordon.

Oddly enough, Great Britain will be the thing is that Gordon already represented the U.S. once in college when he participated in the 2003 Pan-Am Games. There will be some (near) NBA-caliber talent on the roster beyond Gordon and Deng: former Maverick Pops Mensah-Bonsu, who's currently playing in Italy, and former Blazers first-round pick Joel Freeland, who's playing in Spain, are also on the list.