Team USA center Tyson Chandler has a message for NBA owners and executives who are rumbling about their players extending themselves in the summer to play for their countries, and about limiting their stars’ involvement in future Olympics: Check the facts.

“It’s ridiculous,” Chandler told Sporting News. “Why would you want to do that? Because like I say, throughout the history, just about every time a player has played for the U.S. team, he comes back and had a better season. That goes around the board.”

While NBA commissioner David Stern has suggested that Olympic teams roll back their use of NBA players to those 23 and under, members of Team USA have a much different view—they see how playing and practicing with the best talent in the world helps push them to be better. U.S. practices are intense, the workouts are hard and the strategy sessions with new coaching staffs help players see the game in different ways.

Little wonder Kobe Bryant labeled the under-23 idea “stupid.”

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