NBA Europe

A throwaway comment from Chris Kaman months ago, in which the Clipper revealed his great-grandparents were German immigrants, has spiraled out of control. Ball in Europe reports Kaman will join Dirk Nowitzki and the German national team for this month's Olympic qualifying tournament and -- hopefully -- the Beijing Olympics.

Kaman received an expedited German passport, which allows him to compete ASAP. The Germans need the help, too: in the qualifying tournament, they share a group (the toughest) with Greece (the 2005 European champs), Slovenia (Rasho! Sasha!) and Croatia ... and need to finish in the top two just to finish to the elimination round, of which only three of the six remaining teams gets a crack at Beijing.

Other threats to a Kaman-Nowitzki appearance in Beijing include Brazil (a virtual lock to qualify, even without Leandro Barbosa) and Samuel Dalembert's Canadian squad.

The countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics has obviously been met with a good deal of controversy. There's been numerous calls across the world for countries to boycott the games, or at the very least for politicians to skip the opening ceremonies.

But couldn't a greater statement by made by the athletes themselves? Should they be expected to voluntarily withdraw from the Olympics out of protest of China's long history of human rights violations and involvement with Darfur and Tibet? Dirk Nowitzki doesn't want that responsibility, according to a statement he gave to the German news channel n-tv, which was translated by Ball in Europe:

"Why should athletes do, what politicans aren't able to do for years? It is wrong, to make the athletes protest now! When they elected China for the Olympic games to be held at, they should have known that two worlds would clash. They also should have known that there will be trouble, but sport itself is non-political and there are athletes that work for the Olympics for four years. There is no reason for these guys now, not to participate!"

Nowitzki's entitled to an opinion, but in my eyes he's selling athletes short at best and dodging responsibility at worst. Athletes may not be politicians, but they can still wield political influence, especially prominent athletes such as himself. Simply standing back and letting the politicians make all of the decisions without expressing a valid dissenting opinion is rarely a good idea for long. Not to be crude, but you'd think a guy from Germany would've learned that lesson in history class.

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.