This is my special Olympic blog. Four years ago I wrote how I would help the Chinese Olympic team achieve success by being a "special consultant". It obviously worked as China won the most gold medals and finished second in total medals. Having seen the controversy over the U.S. uniforms being made in China, I decided not to be a consultant for China this Olympic for fear of backlash. If Harry Reid wants to burn the U.S. uniforms made in China, he may want to burn me at stake! The whole thing is ridiculous. Unless Reid and others have no clothes made from another country, they should shut up. The USOC needs sponsor money and gets some from Ralph Lauren. Ralph Lauren needs to make a profit so they send the work overseas. This is the capitalist system. Unless you want government sponsor Olympic teams and state owned enterprises, this is the way it is. It is not the fault of the USOC or Ralph Lauren. By the way, China makes its own uniforms but the wool is purchased from Australia because it is the best deal. If the U.S. can make it cheaper I am sure Chinese athletes will be wearing "Made in USA".

I found out that Phelps and Lochte are only competing against each other in the 200 and 400 IMs. They are favored to win the other two they entered. So if they are on all three relays then they each can win 7 golds but both can't win 7. I predict that they would split the two IMs and win 6 each.

The U.S. women are favored to win. China is not as strong this year and Romania figures to be the top competition. Gabby Douglas is coming on real strong and that will help the team but she can very well beat Wieber for the all round title. The U.S. men are also very strong. They have that guy from M whose name I forgot how to spell. Japan is the clear favorite as China had retirements from Beijing and couple of recent injuries that knock out couple of their stars. See what happens when I am not a consultant?

Some guy in my dancing class vehemently said that ballroom dancing should NOT be added to the Olympics. Most of the class disagree with him as expected, but I agree. While I found out that dancing requires athleticism of a kind I don't have, I don't think it should be a competitive sport. It is too subjective and at the highest level it is impossible to tell who is really better. It brings too much politics into it as have figure skating and ice dancing. I don't like those sports either. Too a certain degree so are gymnastics and diving but there are more obvious errors and strength moves with these sports. And since they have been there for a long time and are popular they should stay. But to bring in new sports like ballroom dancing, I don't think so. By the way I like sports where you can play defense and mess up the other team. I would make a good defensive player in ballroom dancing if it is allowed like in most other sports!

I also don't like golf being added. It is basically a rich man sport, more so even than tennis and so a poor country has no chance in it. Luck also plays too much of a role. Witness all the different people who won majors lately. Even Tiger at his best won only about 20% of the time. So to be an Olympic winner in golf would not mean the best golfer unlike Usain Bolt is considered the fastest man in the world.

Of course I am also the guy who wonders why swimming has any strokes besides free style. I mean in a race on land, you don't have events like running backward or run like a butterfly. Race walking should also be eliminated. All those officials along the route just to make sure nobody runs? If someone is chasing you in life would you walk instead of run or use the breast stroke instead of free style to get away? So as you can see if I am king of the Olympics a lot sports may be eliminated and very few new ones would get in.

I know what Sports Illustrated's Sign of the Apocalypse for this week is going to be: Cal tech being sanctioned by the NCAA. Cal tech is cheating like the football powerhouses? They don't even have a football team. Their basketball team won a conference game for the first time in God knows how many years last year and it was big new in LA. They even had a press conference to discuss the victory. I went to one of their basketball game a few years ago because they were playing a school near my house. I just wanted to see how bad they were. They had Asians on the team that I was better than when I was in college. I was annoyed that the local school hardly subbed their starters even though they were up about 40 points. Then I found out later they actually started their scrubs and kept the regulars on the bench the whole game to keep the score down! So now I wonder if Cal Tech will have to vacate their one conference victory last year. What has the world come to?

I see that the Knicks got Raymond Felton and Stephen Smith is all over Jeremy Lin saying that the Knicks lost confidence in him when he did not play the last playoff game so they are not going to match Houston's offer. As I said before Stephen Smith is an idiot and if the Knicks feel that way then they are idiots also. The Knicks were not going to beat Miami with Lin or even Kobe Bryant so why risk a young player's career by playing him when he is not 100%? That is just so stupid! But the Knicks must have doubts about Lin because otherwise they would have offered first, say, 15 million for 3 years and then if Lin wanted to test the market then it would not be their fault if they don't match. Now I think they were not all sure that Lin would be worth a multiple year contract. So once again Lin is being slighted.

But this time he is wanted by someone. I think Houston may be a better fit. He would be the main focus there unless somehow they get Dwight Howard. In NY Carmelo Anthony and Amare are going to hog the offense anyway. I don't think that Jason Kidd would be such a good role model. He just got arrested for drunk driving and don't forget his brush with domestic violence a few years back. If Felton is good enough why did the Knicks traded him a couple years ago? He also had a bad year this past season. I think the Knicks are going to be totally dysfunctional. Houston does not have much a roster left, having lost Scola, Lowry and Camby. So I think Lin will run the offense there and the expectation will be low. So there will be less pressure. So it may be a blessing in disguise.

I thought today was the day that Jeremy Lin would sign with the Rockets and the Knicks will match the offer and end all speculation. But the day came and went without words other than a rumor that Lin was upset at the Knicks for not making the first offer. I find that absurd. If the Knicks had made an offer, it would be substantially less than the Rockets' offer. That would have forced Lin to take the offer and lose the chance to test the market or refuse the offer and look ungrateful to the Knicks who had given him a chance last year. So this was really a bad business decision for the Knicks and a lucky break for Lin. So there was no reason for Lin to be upset and he is intelligent enough to know that.

So far the offseason in the NBA can be described as the changing of the old guards. Jason Kidd went to the Knicks, Steve Nash to the Lakers and Ray Allen to the Heat. All moved to get a better chance to win the title. Obviously Allen got the best chance. He would not have to do too much, just shoot! His new team is already the defending champs and he won't have to log a lot of minutes. Nash will help the Lakers but they will still have trouble getting out of the West because OK City is only going to get better as their stars have not reached their peaks yet. Of course if the Lakers get Dwight Howard, that would change everything. But then there would be conspiracy theory as when the Lakers got Shaq and when they got Gasol. Kidd will not help the dysfunctional Knicks that much except mentoring Lin.

Debate about the 1992 Dream team vs this year's Olympic team. Obviously you can argue all day and cannot resolve anything. My view is that the Big Three from 92, Bird, Magic and Jordan were older at that stage than today's Big Three of James, Durant and Kobe. So today's team have a slight edge in terms of Super, Super Stars. But this team lacks size, Tyson Chandler cannot be compared to Patric Ewing and David Robinson. The 92 team had Malone and Barkley which today's team cannot match up. If Bird and Magic were at the prime then the 92 team wins easily.