USA Basketball Wins Gold, Edges Spain

In a thrilling Gold Medal game between the United States and Spain in men's basketball, Team USA struggled to build a big lead, and just hung on for the win.

Kevin Durant led the team in scoring with 30 points, and LeBron James added 19, but the Americans struggled all game long to generate turnovers and fast break points against the very disciplined Spanish squad, which was led by Pau Gasol, who had 24 points. In addition to the Spanish big men, which also included a good contribution off the bench from Serge Ibaka when Marc Gasol got into foul trouble, the Americans had trouble all game long with the Spanish guards.

Juan Carlos Navarro dropped in 24 for Spain, which only trailed by one point headed into the 4th quarter. But Team USA increased the defensive pressure in the final period, holding Spain to just 18 points, and LeBron James took over, with a dunk and a three to increase the American lead to 9 points, with 1:59 to play.

For head coach Mike Krzyzewski, the win capped off a 7-year reign as US coach, which saw him turn around a team which won bronze in Athens in 2004 to back to back golds in Beijing and London.

Mexico Stuns Brazil, Wins Gold Medal

Brazil's quest for gold will have to wait in men's soccer will have to wait.

Mexico scored within the first 30 seconds of the match, and held on late to deliver a shocking 2-1 win over Brazil in the Gold Medal Match at Wembley Stadium in London.

Oscar Peralta had both goals for El Tri, and capitalized on a horrible backpass in the first minute by the Brazilians, slotting home the first shot of the game past Brazilian goalie Gabriel, the earliest goal in an Olympic match, according to FIFA.

His second would come via a wide-open header off a free kick in 74th minute.

Brazil would get a goal in the 91st minute from Hulk to make it interesting, but after Oscar missed a free header in the waning seconds, it was all over for Brazil, which was the heavy favorite coming into this Olympic competition in London. With young stars like Oscar and Neymar, Brazil will have two years to regroup before they host the World Cup in 2014.

Dwight Howard to Lakers

NBA's continual move toward retraction continued with Dwight Howard weaseling his way out of Orlando, just six months after recommitting to the team, as he was traded in a blockbuster NBA trade that will land him in Hollywood, with the Lakers. He joins a loaded Lakers team which should be a Western Conference favorite, with Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, and Pau Gasol.

Also, in the deal, Andre Iguodala becomes a Denver Nugget, while center Andrew Bynum lands in Philadelphia, along with guard Jason Richardson.

The Magic, whose management turned down a seemingly better deal with the Nets last month, gets Aron Afflalo and Al Harrington from the Nuggets and Nikola Vucevic and Moe Harkless from the 76ers, in addition to three first round picks (one from each team in the deal).

Although they might be celebrating in La-la land (and still, in Miami), this deal signals a continual step toward retraction, in my opinion. There are simply not enough stars in the league, and with a bunch of them teaming up now, markets like Orlando (which got screwed over in this deal), Detroit, and Milwaukee have no chance of competing with these mega-teams, both financially and at the box office. This isn't baseball, where small-market teams can continually replenish through their farm system, or football, where the parity is so great that any team can make a playoff run any given year. Basketball and the NBA is a star-driven league, and without the distribution of these stars equally, the "competitive balance" that David Stern blabbered about on and on during the CBA negotiations might as well be history.

Murray Takes Gold Medal in Tennis

Four major competitions, four different champions this year in Men's Tennis, as today Andy Murray wins the Gold Medal for Great Britain, defeating Switzerland's Roger Federer in straight sets 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 at Centre Court at Wimbledon.

In a rematch of last month's Wimbledon final, in which Federer won to reclaim the world #1 ranking, Murray simply dominated Federer, forcing him into unforced error after unforced error. It was shocking to see how dominant Murray, who has never won a Grand Slam, was in dispatching Federer so easily. 

"I've had a lot of tough losses in my career," he said. "This is the best way to come back from the Wimbledon final. I'll never forget it."

The match result also showed the immense amount of parity in the sport this year, with Novak Djokovic winning the Australian, Rafael Nadal the French, Federer Wimbledon, and Murray the Olympics. It sets up what should be an amazing U.S. Open next month in New York.