NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Free Darko. Joey Litman of Straight Bangin' offers a guest sermon on NBA citizenship and allegiance to the league.

2. Lakers Blog. Kobe thinks "Redeem Team" is a "cheesy" moniker. Communist! (A communist! who makes a salient point, at least.)

3. And One. Looking at a 1893 New York Times intro to "basket ball."

4. Clips Nation. It's hard to keep up with the Clippers front office. (That's actually a good thing this summer.)

5. L.A. Times, via FD. Team USA gets a gold medal in smiling, too.

6. Deadspin. Elect Isiah! No one will ever deserve it more.

Chris Kaman was invited to participate with the USA Select team, the squad of youngsters which serves as both a scrimmage opponent for Team USA proper and a pipeline for potential future Team USA players. Guys like Kevin Durant, Kevin Martin and Al Jefferson participated this year. Kaman declined, for this reason, as told to USA Today's Kelly Whiteside:

Kaman was asked by USA Basketball about playing on a select team of NBA players who practiced against Team USA last month, but Kaman wasn't interested.

"I want to be the beat-up dummy for the U.S. basketball team?" Kaman said. "No offense to those guys, I appreciate everything. But I want to win a medal. I wanted a chance to play in the Olympics with Dirk."

Chris Kaman, who agreed to play for Germany because he wanted to be involved in the Olympics but did not want the beat-up dummy for the U.S. basketball team, sees his team trailing the U.S. by 41 points in the third quarter. Something's not adding up.

The addition of Chris Kaman to the German men's national basketball team seemed like a grasp at mere respectability earlier this summer. The Germans didn't even grab an Olympic berth until July, going 4-1 in the FIBA qualifying tournament, smoking good teams like Brazil and Puerto Rico by double digits. Dirk Nowitzki seemed reborn under his frontcourt partnership with The Caveman, and the pair dominated today's game against Angola.

Is Germany better than happy-to-be-here? On Tuesday, Greece might give us our answer. I do say might -- the Greeks looked flighty and highly unspectacular against Spain today; if the Germans stomp Greece, it's no guarantee of potential greatness. Still, Greece provides a better challenge than the reigning African champs. With good size in opposition, Kaman's mettle will be tested.

Of course, size is where Germany can potentially challenge Team USA a week from Monday in the pool closer, and possibly in the elimination round. Famously, the Americans carry only one center -- Dwight Howard -- and two power forwards -- Chris Bosh and Carlos Boozer. There's the potential (especially if Howard continues to fail at the stripe) LeBron James could be left guarding Dirk while Bosh tries to limit Kaman. The Germans would dominate the glass in such a situation. Team USA's backcourt will maim the poor German guards, but a disparity up front could leave the Americans with a smaller margin for error on the perimeter.

It's funny: Kaman would be no better than the 12th man on the U.S. roster. But with Germany, he might make a competitor strong enough to beat the Americans. Fit, team puzzle-making ... that stuff actually matters! At some point, USA Basketball might learn that. (Of course, the Deutschland hasn't succeeded in team-building -- it just pulled the best minimally German NBA player it could. But still.)