The 2012 Summer Olympics features some of the world’s best basketball players…. Unfortunately, most of them are on Team USA. Today, we’re going to throw a little curveball at you. You have to pick your starting 5, but you can’t pick more than one player from each respective team. Oh, and to make it even harder – you have to have 2 guards, 2 forwards, and 1 center using the positions they are listed at….

We put together our starting 5, which you can see after the jump. We really tried to base it on play thus far not on names, and not on careers. While I do not find Olympic basketball too exciting, I’ve paid enough attention to think I can put together the best five…

Here are our 5…. Who are you picking?

The Guards

Manu Ginobli – Argentina

At 35, Manu is still the motor as well as the heart and soul of Argentina. He’s the team leader, he’s won NBA Championships. I’m going with him at guard instead of Luis Scola at forward after a couple of strong opening games that saw him score, rebound, and assist.

Patty Mills – Australia

Patty Mills had a great opening game, and I’m really looking for any reason not to pick France’s Tony Parker. Yeah, he’s the obvious choice here, but Mills is outplaying him and I promised I’d base it on performance not name. That and I just don’t like Parker.

The Forwards

Pau Gasol – Spain

Listed as a forward, Gasol is getting the nod for one of the slots. Spain has looked like the second-best team in the tournament and Gasol is clearly the best player on the team. No-brainer, right?

Lebron James – USA

Is it weird that this was a no-brainer for me? Lebron was my pick from Team USA the minute I started writing this blog. He’s the best player in the world right now.. Period. The thing that sucks is by picking LBJ I miss out on some serious guards like Kobe, Deron, and Paul who are all clearly better than my current guards.

The Center

Andrei Kirilenko – Russia

Dude he dropped 35 in his first game then followed that up with 16. I have to pick AK47 here. There are some good centers so this was more challenging, but the guy is hot right now.