Team USA Basketball Picks Final Roster

23 Aug, 2014

A desire for a bigger look made Andre Drummond necessary. The belief in Derrick Rose’s health made Damian Lillard expendable.

Those were conclusions made by U.S. team officials when they selected the 12 players who would travel to Spain for the FIBA World Cup of Basketball.

After years of ignoring size concerns by fielding teams with the best wing players in the world, the Americans decided this time around that bigger was better.

That meant keeping all the big men left on their roster, with Drummond joining New Orleans All-Star Anthony Davis, Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins, Brooklyn’s Mason Plumlee and Denver’s Kenneth Faried.

“Just based on how we’re constructed, we thought the insurance of having another big – I don’t want people telling us later, `you should’ve, you could’ve,'” USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

The rest of the roster is: Golden State’s Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, Houston’s James Harden, Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving, Sacramento’s Rudy Gay and Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan.

Lillard, Portland’s All-Star point guard, was cut along with swingmen Chandler Parsons of Dallas, Kyle Korver of Atlanta and Gordon Hayward of Utah. Colangelo said Lillard was a victim of too many players at his position and handled the news gracefully.

“He took it, I mean he was a real pro,” Colangelo said. “He saw it, he understood … he just handed it extremely well.”

The Americans had to be certain Rose could handle the workload after the Chicago Bulls star missed most of the last two seasons after a pair of knee surgeries. He sat out a couple of practices and an exhibition game because of soreness, but was back for Friday’s 112-86 victory over Puerto Rico.

AP

Image David Banks

Mentioned In This Post: