With injuries to most of the big men that were to be on Team USA, and the latest being that Clippers forward Blake Griffin; there has been talk that the lack of size will cause the United States trouble in their quest to repeat as Olympic champions in the upcoming London Games.
If you speak to anyone on Team USA they will say that their lack of height is not an issue:
"Really it's kind of boring to keep answering the question of what are you going to do with the bigs," U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski said Sunday. "Like, this is who we have. Why don't we talk about what we're going to do with what we have, than talk about what we don't have? I don't really understand how that's productive. So I'm trying to dismiss that and concentrate on what we're doing."
The only true center on the squad is Tyson Chandler, but USA basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo believes size alone is not enough and he feels that the athleticism of the roster he put together can get the job done.
Colangelo has set up pre-Olympic games against teams that have large front lines to test the smaller United States team:
"We wanted as good a competition as we could get during our pregames and with Brazil because of their front line and their experience and they're a good team, Argentina and Spain, three out of the five are really good tests for us," Colangelo said. "So we're very aware of what they have and it'll be a challenge and we'll learn a lot from that game, no question about it."
Brazil almost beat a similarly sized United States team two years ago, but it showed that if an opponent can slow the game down that Team USA may have some issues against those taller teams.
For more on the 2012 London Olympics, stay tuned to SB Nation's Olympic hub.