Manu Ginobili hobbled through the Spurs' embarrassing five-game loss to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, dashing San Antonio's dreams of repeat O'Briens. And despite the wishes of an S.A. front office which would have liked to see Manu spend the summer recuperating, Ginobili got himself in shape to help Argentina defend its gold medal in Beijing. That didn't end well: Manu re-aggravated his injured ankle in the first half of Argentina's semifinal match against the United States. Argentina went on to earn bronze without Ginobili.

And now, it's gotten worse: Ginobili tells La Nacion he will need to have surgery to repair a damaged ligament, and he may miss the start of the NBA season.

I don't need to tell you how important Manu is to the Spurs. Really, he's more vital than ever. Houston stole away Brent Barry, leaving Tim Duncan and Tony Parker as the only Spurs who can score reliably. Duncan is getting up there in age, and his scoring output and efficiency sunk a bit last season. Parker's still lovely, but he's nowhere near the scorer Manu has been. Is it really up to Michael Finley to pump in threes and Fabricio Oberto to scoop up easy baskets? Are we going to be subjected to many Kurt Thomas baseline "jumpers" (more like flat-footed tosses)?

The Spurs' attempt at re-levitating to the NBA throne suffered a major blow with this one, unless Manu bounces back quickly and see no ill effects beyond his rehab time period.

Imagine Nate McMillan's Olympic predicament. As an assistant on Mike Krzyzewski's staff, he had to concerntrate at the task at hand -- or at the very least, keep a straight face -- as Spain's Rudy Fernandez torched the Redeem Team's collection of All-Stars (and posterized Dwight Howard) for 22 points in fewer than 18 minutes.

Behind the stoic front, though, he was going nuts, just like most of the fans back in Portland. From Jason Quick of The Oregonian:

"I'm sitting there (in the gold medal game) with a straight face, trying not to smile," McMillan said. " (Spain) are the guys we have to beat, but I'm caught. That's my player and I want to (he claps his hands twice) but I gotta (he makes a serious face) because we are going up against him."

[...] "I was so impressed with him that it was to the point where after the second time I saw him, I didn't sleep that night because I was moving my rotations around," McMillan said. "I swear I did not sleep. I could not sleep thinking about him. Because I'm saying, 'We can put him here, do this with him, do that with him and Brandon (Roy), and do this... So he's playing for us. Oh yeah. I see that right now."

So what did he dream up? For now he's planning on using Fernandez on the second team alongside Jerryd Bayless and Travis Outlaw, although Fernandez will occasionaly share the court with Brandon Roy. If Fernandez plays as well as he did in Beijing (which isn't out of the question given the quality of competition he faced), can the Blazers keep him out of the starting lineup? I like Steve Blake as much as the next guy, but I don't see how they could.

Update: My timing is ridiculously bad. Basketball 24/7, which has been on this story for weeks, just broke the news that Great Britain Basketball ponied up for insurance -- Deng will play!

Luol Deng has planned to represent his homeland by anchoring Great Britain's 2012 Olympic basketball team for quite some time. Unfortunately, those plans hit a snag, thanks largely to his brand spanking new $71 million extension. From Brian Hanley of the Chicago Sun-Times (via Blog a Bull):

MetLife, the NBA's insurer which covers the top 150 salaries in the league under a group policy, has the right to exclude 14 high-risk players every year.

Decisions are based on the player's injury history and the amount of money remaining on his contract. Deng came under MetLife scrutiny when he signed a $71 million, six-year contract at the start of this month. It is the fourth-highest contract in the NBA in terms of outstanding money.

MetLife subsequently used an MRI scan taken last November when Deng, 23, injured his back and missed three games to exclude him from the coverage.

Because MetLife has excluded Deng, he can't play in a qualifying tournament for the Olympics next summer without additional insurance, and as you'd expect, a policy to insure a $71 million contract isn't exactly cheap. How expensive? Try $500,000 a summer for each of the next three years. All told, that's about half of the national team's entire budget.

Note to NBA players thinking of signing overseas: be sure to negotiate your salary in U.S. dollars. The strength of the euro is the biggest reason why European owners are able to throw lucrative contracts at NBA players, but when the economy shifts and the dollar regains strength, that salary isn't quite as attractive as it once was. As Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune notes, that's already started to happen:

Take [Josh] Childress, for example. His contract with the Greek club Olympiacos was reported as a three-year deal worth $20 million after taxes. That averages out to $6.7 million dollars a season or about 4.25 million euros, according to exchange rate July 23.

On the day Childress signed his headline-making deal, 1 dollar was worth 0.6366 euros, according to www.x-rates.com. As of Wednesday, the dollar had strengthened such that it now is worth 0.6821 euros.

That might not seem like much, unless you're owed millions of euros like Childress or the other American players. Those 4.25 million euros that Childress will make this season (if he's not guaranteed U.S. dollars) are now worth more like $6.23 million.

All in all, Spain should be proud for taking a team of NBA All-Stars to the limit. There's no shame in losing to perhaps the most talented team to ever step foot on a basketball court ... right? That's not how Spain's starting center Felipe Reyes (pictured, getting demolished by Kobe Bryant) team sees it. From SportsYa.com (via HoopsHype)

"I think we deserved to win the gold medal because we did an incredible job. If it hadn't been for the officials, we'd have the gold instead of the silver," center Felipe Reyes said.

"If they had blown the whistle for the steps they take, the defense with the hands they use and had blown the whistle on everything, it's clear that we would have won. We got to within three points in spite of the referees, and if they'd been good, we would have won, pretty clearly," Reyes said.

"If the referees had followed FIBA rules, we would have won, but we are very satisfied with the silver," Reyes, who scored 10 points, said.

To be fair, Reyes does have a point: the referees were bad. That said, the only thing consistent about the refs was that they made questionable calls on both sides of the ball. Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were in foul trouble for much of the game, but the difference is that when Team USA had to sit someone, they had someone like Dwyane Wade or Deron Williams to take their spot. It was the Redeem Team's depth (and the short international three-point line) that won this game, not the refs.

Update: Jose Calderon isn't happy with the refs, either.

Following Team USA's thrilling victory over Spain to capture the gold medal, special FanHouse correspondent Chris Bosh sent us this e-mail from Beijing. Enjoy. And congrats, Chris.

It's finally over! And we did IT! Man! I've been dreaming about this since I first saw The Dream Team earn their medals back in 1992. I was only 8 years old, but I thought it was so cool and I wanted to be just like them. I always watched the Olympics as a little kid and it amazes me that I'm at this point where I am now.

This has been the biggest accomplishment of my career so far. It's such a great feeling because we worked so hard for all of these years and it's paid off for us. We started this thing in 2006 with dreams of a Gold Medal in Beijing and now we're to that point. Time flies so fast and I'm definitely going to take in this moment. It seems like it was yesterday when we were at the World Championships getting a Bronze medal. Now we have something better and we can put that behind us.

In the afterglow of Team USA's gold medal redemption, the attention turns to what's next. Actually, the New York Times scooped everyone by asking the crew on Saturday their plans for participation in the 2009-2012 edition. But Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports got something solid on the guy who calls the shots, Jerry Colangelo.

Moments after the United States' 118-107 victory over Spain on Sunday, Colangelo strongly suggested he would return: "Look, continuity is important. If you're a betting guy, you'd say, (I'm) probably going to do it. But it's not official."

Colangelo, 68, said he plans to make an announcement next week. His continuing in the job would be no surprise. Colangelo has been talking a lot about the future of the program, about its next steps and no one surrounding USA Basketball and the NBA expects him to walk away.

That matters quite a bit. Why? Colangelo's proud of this team, proud his vision came to its best possible end. I imagine, because of that, any Redeem Teamers who want back in for the 2010 World Championships and the 2012 London Games will have a spot ... save maybe Jason Kidd.

Likewise, the players Colangelo picked for the USA Select team -- Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, Kevin Martin, Brandon Roy among them -- will likely have a better shot than if someone else took over. If too many 2008 ballers stick around (it'd be a third straight Games appearance for Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade), these other kids won't get much of a chance.

As for coaching, expect Mike D'Antoni or Nate McMillan to get the nod. Gregg Popovich has been mentioned, but he and Colangelo don't get along, and that'd potentially ruin all the good feelings from Beijing.

Team USA had to work for it -- for three years, and for 40 minutes this morning -- but they earned what they sought: the gold medal. In a ridiculously entertaining match against Spain (a team the United States beat by 37 last week), Team USA pulled out the 11-point victory to grab the tournament victory.

The margin snuck within two points in the final quarter, as Spain relied on a heavy diet of absurd Juan Carlos Navarro floaters and Rudy Fernandez threes to stay within spitting range of the Americans. But Kobe Bryant was just as good, nailing some massive threes and doling out sweet assists. One of the Kobe threes -- shot from the fourth row -- also happened to goad Rudy into his fifth and final foul, adding a bonus to a vital four-point play. Kobe most definitely played up to his billing as the biggest American star in China.

Dwyane Wade was nuts in the first half, dropping 21 points in 14 minutes. (!) He cooled off, which was easily predictable given that he made his bed with threes in the first half and he's not a good deep shooter. LeBron James was ineffective in the second half, picking up his fourth foul early on in the final frame. Carmelo Anthony's shooting was off and on; Chris Paul was good but couldn't stick his threes. Deron Williams didn't get much of a chance on offense. The bigs were active but not overpowering ... in fact, the Brothers Gasol had plenty of space to operate in the paint.

Navarro's stream of floaters won't soon be forgotten, nor will Rudy's insane dunk over Dwight Howard. But Team USA's the story here -- four years after being humbled on the world's stage, American basketball is back on top.

Three years in the making, with plenty of highs and lows in between: Team USA is ready to take its chance at an Olympic gold medal. In the final game, the Americans -- led by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant -- will take on reigning world champion Spain, featuring Pau Gasol and Rudy Fernandez. Check out our preview and read up on all the analysis from throughout the tournament.

If you're basketball nuts like us, join us at 2:30 a.m. EST/11:30 p.m. PST for a liveblog of the game. BYOB.

The Spurs, despite having several international stars, aren't really cool with the international basketball thing. Last summer, San Antonio's bosses convinced Manu Ginobili to take a summer off from the Argentine national team, and tried to persuade Tony Parker to do the same (Parker played, France still sucked). It's an odd situation. Gregg Popovich felt snubbed (allegedly) when Jerry Colangelo passed him over for Mike Krzyzewski. Still, Pop has been mentioned as the 2009-2012 USA basketball coach.

With that being said, it's hard to imagine Pop keeping his calm when seeing Manu leave the semifinal game against the United States Friday, limping on the same ankle which limited his effectiveness in the playoffs. The Spurs pushed Manu hard to stay at home again this summer and rehab. But Manu pressed on, and eventually convinced an S.A. assistant he'd be fine. It's not surprising to find out he immediately feared the reaction of Pop after his injury.

Ginobili says he has been devastated by the recurring injury. "This is one of the worst situations in my career," he said.

Ginobili added he is "prepared" in case he needs to undergo surgery. He has also revealed that he called San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich when the game against the USA had ended because his boss was watching the game and knew that he would be worried.

Worried, breathing fire, kicking mules. Something like that.