[The Poet]

Up until The Dream Team, the USA was the only major competitor in any sport that limited competition totally to amateur athletes. No other nation of consequence made such a distinction. Plus, the 1972 theft of the basketball gold by the refs not only put a spotlight on the issue, one only overshadowed during those Munich games by the tragedy which befell the Israeli team, but it also put an inordinate amount of pressure upon Dean Smith's squad of 1976 up in Montreal to regain the crown for the nation which invented the game.

Personally, I'd have no problem with college players representing the USA in basketball, but only as long as every other participant in the sport also fielded a team made up of amateurs.