Playing for country has always said to be one of the greatest honors a professional athlete can have. To wears your country's colors with the chance to bring home a gold medal and hear your anthem played -- there's no pride greater.

By doing so, players risk injury, add miles onto their bodies and give up a lot of free time. While there's certainly a lot of upside to playing for country, it's not all gravy. And because of it, Ray Allen and Dwyane Wade both think there should be some incentive. Here's Allen, via FoxSports.com:

“You talk about the patriotism that guys should want to play for, but you (need to) find a way to entice the guys,” Allen said. “It’s not the easiest thing in the world if you play deep in the playoffs and then you get two, three weeks off and then you start training again to play more basketball where it requires you to be away from home and in another country. It’s fun, but your body does need a break.

“Everybody says, ‘Play for your country.’ But (NBA players are) commodities, your businesses. You think about it, you do camps in the summer, you have various opportunities to make money. When you go overseas and play basketball, you lose those opportunities, what you may make… If I’m an accountant and I get outsourced by my firm, I’m going to make some money somewhere else.”

And here's Wade to ESPN.com:

“It’s a lot of things you do for the Olympics — a lot of jerseys you sell,” Wade said after the Heat’s practice on Wednesday in advance of Thursday’s game against Chicago. “We play the whole summer. I do think guys should be compensated. Just like I think college players should be compensated as well. Unfortunately, it’s not there. But I think it should be something, you know, there for it….

“The biggest thing is now you get no rest,” Wade said. “So you go to the end of the season, (Team USA) training camp is two weeks later. You’re giving up a lot to do it. It’s something you want to do. But it’s taxing on your body. You’re not playing for the dollar. But it would be nice if you would get compensated.”

Both guys have logged major minutes for Team USA. Both guys have gold medals. Wade's point that there's merchandise money being lost on jersey sales and whatnot is completely fair, Allen's point that they're sacrificing money isn't going to be as well received. Because, you know, NBA players make lots of money already.

But in a way, players are sort of making money. They're growing their international brand. By playing in the Olympic games, international fans are seeing you play and are developing a bond with your brand. Shoes sales, jersey sales, other merchandise -- all of it can be built up by an appearance overseas.

There's supposed to be some kind of unspoken amateurism to the Olympic games, where it's just pureblooded competition because people want to represent their country. But let's be honest. It's not all about that. Michael Phelps loved winning gold, but he also loved the fame and fortune that came along with it. And while NBA players are in a unique position apart from other Olympic sports in that they already make lots of money to play, people expect it to be this wholesome effort of representing their country without any incentive other than national pride. Obviously, that's not entirely the case.