Appearing at the Las Vegas Summer League on Monday, Celtics wing Jaylen Brown was asked about his reaction to not making USA Basketball’s Olympic team, either as one of the initial 12 players or as a replacement for Kawhi Leonard. Brown made it clear that, despite his apparent frustration, he was proud of teammate Derrick White for taking Leonard’s spot.
“I called Derrick right away,” Brown said, per Souichi Terada of MassLive.com. “Just to make sure there’s no confusion, my love for you and all of that. He knew that, and he did. You don’t always gotta make everything public. Me and D-White are good.”
Still, Brown – who said he “wasn’t surprised” at being passed over for Team USA – reiterated that he believes Nike was involved in that decision. As Jared Weiss of The Athletic writes, Brown has criticized Nike over the years and isn’t sponsored by the company, whereas White is.
“I do for sure,” Brown replied when asked if he thinks Nike influenced the roster decision. “There will be more stuff to come with that. As of now, I’m not gonna comment on it.”
Here’s more on Team USA:
- As Joe Vardon of The Athletic relays, White told reporters in Abu Dhabi over the weekend that he was scheduled to be on vacation in Cabo San Lucas, but that he’d “much rather” be with Team USA. “I got the call and I was ready to go,” White said. “… I just had to talk to the family and try to figure out how we can make it work and as quickly as possible. I’m super thankful and grateful and excited to be here.”
- Team USA still wasn’t at its best in Monday’s exhibition game against Australia, but key contributions from Anthony Davis and Anthony Edwards helped the team secure a six-point victory, as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and The Athletic’s Vardon detail.
- With Joel Embiid still trying to round into form and Davis having been the team’s most effective big man through two exhibition contests, head coach Steve Kerr may face a tough decision when determining his starting center for the Olympics, Vardon writes in another story for The Athletic.
- Team USA is still playing NBA basketball, according to John Hollinger of The Athletic, who says the squad will need to adjust to better the international rules and style to ensure it wins gold in Paris.
- Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said on Monday that he and the Clippers were “very disappointed” with USA Basketball’s decision to replace Leonard on the Olympic roster, writes Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. Frank’s comments are noteworthy, since even though Team USA managing director Grant Hill took responsibility for the move, reporting at the time indicated that Leonard’s camp and the Clippers were involved in making the decision, too. “No, it was USAB’s call and I was quite frankly very disappointed with the decision,” Frank said. “Kawhi wanted to play. We wanted him to play. I was there the first two practices, he looked very good. Was a full participant in everything that they did. I wasn’t there for the third practice where ultimately that was the point where they decided to go in a different direction (last Wednesday). I expressed to them I really wish that they would’ve given Kawhi more time.”