Following a tough loss to the United States yesterday, Argentina clearly must be disappointed but I imagine no one is as pissed off about what transpired in that game as much as Gregg Popovich, R.C. Buford and the rest of the San Antonio crew.

It only took about four minutes into play for a grimacing Manu Ginobili to limp off the court grabbing his ankle, not hiding the fact that he was in significant pain and likely wouldn’t be returning.

I must admit, the first thing I could think of when I saw that he went down was definitely not about Argentina’s gold medal hopes suddenly evaporating, but the projectile vomit that must have just arrived on Popovich’s 96″ flatscreen TV.

This doesn’t sound so good:

“He was pretty bad,” Argentina’s Carlos Delfino told Yahoo! Sports, shaking his head. “He was in pain. …He was in pain.€

It’s a long season, sometimes so long it causes expressions like Ginobili’s, but it’s still over two months away, so it would be stupid for anyone to count them out, but I’m guessing San Antonio still would have rather seen their awful yet beloved mascot get put in the hospital by the Phoenix Gorilla than to have this happen.

As annoying as Ginobili is as a player, especially when he’s facing your team, and as much fun as it would be to place a few black furniture pads on his bald spot, it’s obvious playing for Argentina meant something to him, and it’s never fun to see someone go down.

However, on the complete flip side of all this, none of this seemed to affect Diego Maradona, who appeared to be having an unbelievable time at the game. I must admit, I had an unbelievable time staring at his hair.

Olympic glory too high a cost for NBA (Yahoo Sports)