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In case you're wondering why the Olympic coverage seems oddly unsatisfying, here's 20 minutes of your life you can never get back:

Following Michael Phelps' dramatic gold medal performance in the 200 IM, NBC offered you four minutes of commercials you'd already seen ad nauseum. 

They followed that with the playing of the U.S. National Anthem. Note to NBC: we've heard the national anthem before.

Then four more minutes of commercials, including promos for shows that are comedies, ironically, only because they think they are.

Then several minutes of showing Phelps meandering around the pool waiting for his next event with a clock ticking off the minutes since his last competition. Evidently NBC was oblivious to the fact that it was also cataloging the time since its audience had last seen any action.

Then an interview with Ryan Lochte, who had finished fifth in the event and had, like all the other media-savvy swimmers, nothing to say.

Followed by four minutes of commercials. 

Or at least I assume it was four minutes. I turned off the TV at that point and read a book -- without commercial interruption.

...And Talk About Irrelevant -- There's Olympic Basketball

It beggars the imagination how any American can manufacture excitement about the Olympic men's basketball "competition."

There are 12 players on each team. The American squad fits entirely among the 15 best players competing, meaning the tournament has all the intrigue of Russia's invasion of Crimea.

The US team of NBA stars will oppose the amateurs from China and Venezuela during the tournament. It's hard to believe a single American will watch these debacles and cheer for "their" team.

It's hard to believe this is even an Olympic sport. It's really just embarrassing.

Who's The Man Now?

So now the question is no longer whether Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian ever, but whether Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian of the 2012 games.

With his three golds in London, Usain Bolt has cemented his place as the greatest sprinter of all time: Bolt is the third man to win 100 and 200 in the same Olympics. 

• He's the second man to repeat in the 100. (Carl Lewis required a disqualification to achieve the feat.)
• He's the first man to repeat in the 200. 
• He's the first man to repeat in both the 100 and 200. (Not fair: WWII prevented Jesse Owens from defending his crowns.)
• He's been toying with his opponents.
• He owns the three fastest 100 times in history.
• He's run the two fastest 200 times in history.

Bolt's end-race antics prevent a complete account of his domination. We know that even loping the last few meters, he is the fastest man on earth by a healthy margin. His obliteration of the Olympic 100 came against a Dream Team field -- the fastest ever recorded.

Usain Bolt has promised a return in Rio, 2016, perhaps to gild his lily, perhaps to race to gold in the 400. Regardless, I'd vote for him as the greatest Olympian in the 2012 games.

Olympic Basketball? Thhhhpppp!

A few quick words about the Olympic basketball "competition."

Are you watching the U.S. team play in the Olympic basketball tournament?

Are you listening to the pre- and post-game analysis? The sports talk between games?

Are you getting excited about the U.S. team and the possibility of a medal?

Are you kidding me?

The top 15 players in the world who are in the tournament all play on the US Olympic basketball team. You don't agree? You think Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobili or Tony Parker outplays Andre Iguodala? Fine. Make that 12 of 15. 

Roughly forty-five of the top 50 players in the world are Americans. Half the teams in the tournament do not include a single NBA regular on their roster.

In what way is this a competition? I'd rather watch Barney Frank read banking regulation in his underwear. A U.S.-Tunisia match-up isn't just a rout; it's unappetizing. A squad of the 15 worst NBA players could name their score against the outclassed Tunisians. It's like organizing a pickup game between your schoolyard friends and the local middle school for mentally retarded kids. You'd be embarrassed to win.

This all stems from the humiliation felt by U.S.basketball insiders after the Soviets won a couple of gold medals in real competitions (and one suspect call) over American college squads. Failing to secure its birthright gold caused the basketball universe to explode. So U.S. Olympic bigwigs created the "Dream Team" and turned the Olympic basketball tournament into a nightmare. It's now as interesting as Michael Phelps swimming against your local summer rec league.

I will be rooting like mad for whoever is playing the Americans. The arrogance that created this sideshow could use another swift kick in the crotch. It's a futile wish, of course, but that's exactly the point.

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Spitting the Bit

I've avoided any critique of the Olympic coverage because it's the same every year: America American Americans America's America. It's such a hallmark of Olympic coverage in this country that I won't belabor the point, except to say it'd be interesting to compile a list of greatest Olympic moments that Americans have never heard of. I'd vote for the 1984 bicycle race in which the East German slowed at the finish so he could grasp the hand of the West German chasing him and cross the line together. Or perhaps Nigeria upsetting the whole world to win the '96 soccer gold.

I've never understood the notion that athletes are putting shots or slalom skiing for anyone's glory but their own. Or the notion that Olympic victories somehow reflect national superiority. The execrable Soviet Union won bushels of medals while many perfectly pleasant industrialized democracies focus their attention on liberty, justice and prosperity rather than on sporting domination. Victories by Chinese athletes do nothing to mitigate the abysmal human rights record of the despicable Chinese government.

In the 2008 Olympics, the most compelling narrative has been Michael Phelps' assault on eight gold medals. With seven in the bank as of this writing, the story is about to reach its zenith and fulfill NBC's wildest dreams. As is often the case, the narrative is obscuring some of the facts.

On the surface, the genial and talented Phelps has accomplished an amazing feat and deserves all the accolades. It takes nothing away from him to note that he's been extraordinarily lucky in two of his races. But since that muddies the narrative, you've probably joined NBC's conspiracy to ignore some inconvenient facts.

First, Phelps owes one of his medals to Jason Lezak. Phelps did very little to earn the 4x100 freestyle relay gold. He wasn't noticeably faster than his French competitor. France was stronger in the two other legs. Lezak, however, swam a 46-second anchor leg, a full second faster than Alain Bernard's 100m world record time the next day. That's Lezak's gold and no one else's.

More significantly, Phelps gets credit for touching out Milorad Cavic by .01 seconds at the wall in the 100 butterfly. But Phelps didn't win anything: Cavic spit the bit. As any third-rate swimmer in a summer league (my pedigree at age 14) could tell you, when you don't have any room to stroke at the wall, kick like hell. Had Cavic simply complied with that Competitive Swimming 101 rule, he would have won by a visible margin. But if NBC acknowledges that Cavic choked, they let air out of the Michael Phelps float.

Reality is merely an illusion, said Einstein, albeit, a very persistent one. NBC has proven more persistent.