Nothing like a little basketball to enliven a Thursday morning! The U.S. team is in Manchester to play a road friendly against Great Britain at 11:10 a.m. California time today on ESPN2. Britain, I don't need to tell you, is a poor basketballing country. 2012 will be just their second ever appearance in the Olympics, and they're in it only because they're the host country. That was also the case with their first appearance, in 1948.

They do have one excellent player in British citizen Luol Deng. There's also Joel Freeman, a 25-year-old big man who signed with the Trail Blazers last week; Pops Mensah-Bonsu, who played at George Washington and booked 61 games as an NBA journeyman; and Eric Boateng, a onetime McDonald's All-American who spent a year at Duke and three at Arizona State. This won't be a close game.

Hey remember during the lockout, when Metta World Peace was going to sign with some random team in England? That was fun.