SYDNEY – Oh, yes, you can have it all.

You can play basketball for an Olympic gold medal in Australia – and witness the birth of your daughter, 10,000 miles away in Miami – within the same week.

If your name is Alonzo Mourning, that is.

If your name is, for instance, Gregor Fucka, well … you fill in the punchline.

Tonight, Mourning will take the floor with the U.S. men’s basketball team to sissy-slap the hapless Lithuanians on its inevitable march to the gold medal.

Tomorrow, Mourning will board a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles. Fourteen hours later, he will get a lift from LAX to Miami International on the private jet of Mickey Arison, Mourning’s boss and the owner of the Miami Heat.

Assuming modern medicine works the way it is supposed to, on Saturday Mourning will be present at the induced birth of his daughter, Myka Sydney.

On Sunday, Arison’s jet will drop Mourning back at LAX in time for him to catch a Qantas flight to Sydney that is scheduled to arrive just after the U.S. gets done making a souffle out of the French and their head pastry chef, Frederic Weis.

Mourning will be back in uniform just in time for the formality of the medal round.

And I say to myself, what a wonderful world.

Undoubtedly there are countless others here who at some point were forced to make a tough, even agonizing choice, about spending nearly a month away from their families in another hemisphere to participate in the Olympics.

Some of them no doubt decided that matters at home were more pressing than even the chance of winning a gold medal. Others decided to sacrifice precious family time in pursuit of their dream.

And then there are those for whom there was no choice at all. They had to be here.

Not so for Alonzo Mourning, or, in fairness, probably any member of the so-called Dream Team.

Those people never seem to have to make the tough call.

Being here is big business, for the athletes involved, for the shoe and apparel companies that sponsor them, for the networks.

Consequently, Alonzo Mourning and others like him can do whatever they want. So they do.

And in all honesty, I am not quite sure whether what Alonzo Mourning is doing is an act of family heroism or colossal selfishness.

Clearly, winning the gold medal was important to him. So important, that he was willing to risk missing the birth of his daughter.

That is, until his wife, Tracy, laid down the law.

“She said, ‘You’re can only go if you’re able to come back [in time for the birth],'” he said.

In order to make it happen, Mourning consulted with the USOC, which cleared his way to leave the team for two games. Then, he and his wife consulted with their doctor, who gave them a safe window to induce labor, which fell between the 17th and the 23rd of the month.

Mourning checked the team schedule and settled on Sept. 23 as the date of his daughter’s birth.

So what if induced-labor can be incredibly painful for the woman and remarkably unreliable in terms of how long it lasts?

It’s just another example of how, in our lifetimes, the Olympics have gone from an inspiring gathering of the world’s most determined amateur athletes for a global sporting event to a commercial showcase for the rich and privileged.

The Dream Team concept was bad enough. For some reason, a game is less interesting when one team has absolutely no chance to win.

The U.S., as it sometimes does, came out sleepwalking – the DayDream Team? – against Italy on Tuesday night and led by just one point with five minutes left in the half.

Then, it suddenly woke up. The score was 64-33 the rest of the way, and believe me, people were streaming out of The Dome for most of the second half. The U.S. won, 93-61.

This is the kinder, gentler Dream Team.

But still, the game against Italy had its boorish moments, particularly when Vince Carter decided to jam an elbow into the throat of someone named Roberto Chiacig and keep pushing until the poor sap fell over. Then, Carter walked over him to the hoop. Chiacig got the foul.

But then, American professional athletes have grown accustomed to getting whatever they want.

And even among this caste of athletic royalty, NBA players are the most pampered of all.

Why should an Alonzo Mourning ever be forced to make a tough choice? Or worse, a sacrifice?

Making sacrifices is what the Olympics used to be about, back in the day before it was The Games.

Back in the days when it was merely a bunch of games.