By Pete

I've been reading a lot of articles around the web lately discussing the issue of NBA players who choose not to participate in the World Championship tournament. Most of the articles criticize their decision not to play. I disagree with their opinion.

First of all, NBA players have only been participating in these types of events for the past 10 years. Prior to the '92 Olympics, amateur players filled the rosters of countries represented at these games. Yes, some of the athletes were playing for professional teams outside of the United States, but it is still not the NBA. I don't care about the increased number of foreign players in the NBA in recent years, how about giving our top college and high school players a chance to play against the world's best outside of the NBA? Imagine watching a US team with Lebron James, Luol Deng, Kendrick Perkins, or Charlie Nueva? How about our College future stars like Luke Walton, Jason Gardner, Jason Kapono, Chris Marcus, or Dahntay Jones? These are suppose to be future NBA players. Why not watch them go up against the world's best on a global stage? If these ballers are worth a consideration on draft day, then why not put the responsibility of winning the World Championship on them?

NBA players have already proven to the world that they can play at the best level and have other priorities. They have teams, owners, and fans to worry about. Most of them have to worry about staying healthy, improving, and working together with their teammates to win the championship that really counts..the NBA Championship. It's their job to play their best for their NBA team. They have to worry about a 82 game season, plus hopefully the playoffs. If they happen to injure themselves, they will hurt their team. What good would that do? Imagine your team's best player out for a considerable part of the season because they participated in the Worlds? You would be infuriated.

The prep and college stars don't have a job yet. They are still out to prove that they deserve the multimillion dollar contracts, sponsorships, and bling bling lifestyle. In a time where many NBA rookies haven't done much to pay their dues, we should be encouraging the inexperienced players to play for our country. Will we win every tournament and Olympic gold? Maybe not, but it will open the eyes of many young players and hopefully show them that they may not be as good as they think they are. As a result, they may put in more time in learning the basic skills that foreign players are known for. They say that competition is healthy. But when you are the best at what you do, you are only helping the others get better. Imagine playing basketball with a 4 yr old. Would you get better beating the kid every game? Of course not.

Let's keep the pressure off of Kobe, T-Mac, Shaq, Garnett, and all the other NBA players and put it on Lebron 'King' James and all the other future NBA players. Show us what you are made of... then maybe the fans will decide to call you King.

Pete is from Las Vegas, Nevada, and CoolVegas.com.