Just a week ago, the U.S. senior men’s basketball team seemed like a lock to capture its second consecutive gold medal in the newly named World Cup, which will be held in Spain from Aug. 31 through Sept. 14.
But that was before its front line was decimated by the withdrawls of two All Star players and likely starters, center Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves and forward Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers. Both took a pass on this pre-Olympic competition, which will award the winner with a free pass to the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Two other valuable players, center LeMarcus Aldridge of Portland and forward Kawhi Leonard of San Antonio, the MVP of the 2104 NBA finals, would likely would have made the team, also taken a pass, leaving Mike Krzyzewski with a training camp roster of just 18 players for 12 spots.
Training Camp to decide the finalists starts Monday, July 28 in Vegas and concludes Aug. 1 with an intrasquad exhibiition.
Team USA still has 6-10 forward Kevin Durant, the NBA’s MVP, who will arguably be the best player in the competition, at its disposal, but beating competitive host team Spain in a potential gold medal game at hostile Madrid– just got a more problematic. Spain is particularly big up front, with the Gasol brothers– Pao and Marc– and Oklahoma Thunder forward Serge Ibaka. Spain’s size is likely to force Team USA to keep one of two young bigs: Andre Drummond or DeMarcus Cousins, along with 6-10 power forward Anthony Davis. Neither has the kind of versatility that is suited to the international game, but the prospect of having the Gasols hammer the U.S. in the paint requires one of the two be given a spot.
If the U.S. doesn’t win, the Americans will have to qualify for Rio in a FIBA Americas tournament next year, most likely in Las Vegas.
The decision by Love– who made a public committtment to play last summer– came as somewhat of a surprise.
But Love had to withdrew from the roster while the Minnesota Timberwolves field offers for the three-time All Star, a process that was extended with the Cavs’ rookie and No. 1 pick overall Andrew Wiggins signed his contract this week. Love has a breakthrough summer in 2010 when played a key role in Team America’s gold medal run at the World Championships in Turkey and was a member of the 2012 gold medal team in the London summer game. “He wants to play but it’s a little bit of a sign of the times when you look at the league in terms of contracts, rumored trades,” Team USA director Jerry Colangelo said. “All of those circumstances put players in a funny position.”
The Cavaliers have been pursuing Love since before the June 26 NBA draft. Their chances of landing Love, who can opt out of his contract next summer and has told the Timberwolves he wants to play for a contender, increased exponentially when LeBron James chose to return to play in Cleveland.
