The Sports Monitor

Badminton is an Olympic sport. Yet baseball isn't. On top of it all, eight athletes have been booted from the badminton competition. I'm still not sure what's more shocking -- badminton as an official sport or a scandal where eight athletes were tossed for intentionally losing. And they were doing a terrible job at losing, too. Maybe they should have been kicked out for being poor at losing. Either way, gimme some good ol' football. Or baseball -- the Pirates still are contenders. One final question: Did NBC have a channel dedicated to badminton?

First, Kobe Bryant claimed this year's U.S men's basketball team would beat the 1992 Dream Team. Now, LeBron James said the same thing . It's nice to talk, but James and Bryant must be dreaming. This year's team would not beat the 1992 team. No way. This year's team would not beat the 1996 team. And I'm not sure this year's team is a lock to win gold in London, either. The 1992 team was stacked with Hall of Famers in Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. But the list doesn't stop there. There were 11 Hall of Famers on that team. Other than Kobe and LeBron, I'm not sure anyone else from this year's team makes that 1992 squad. And you can say the London team is more athletic, but tell me who on that team would stop David Robinson, Patrick Ewing or Karl Malone in the post? No one. That's this team's biggest weakness, no big men. But it looks like dreaming could become a bigger shortcoming. They should focus on...