NEW YORK — Kyrie Irving took one last shot on the flight home from the NBA Finals, hoping LeBron James would play in the Olympics.
NEW YORK — Kyrie Irving took one last shot on the flight home from the NBA Finals, hoping LeBron James would play in the Olympics.
James isn’t going to Rio, and neither are many more of basketball’s best players.
The Americans think they’ll be just fine with who they have.
“We should be heavily favored,” Golden State’s Klay Thompson said. “I mean, 12 NBA stars, very unselfish guys, very versatile team, we definitely should be favored. It’s a disappointment if we don’t win gold.”
The U.S. selected the roster Monday, led by Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony, it hopes can do that for the third straight time.
Durant and Anthony are the only players with Olympic experience after a number of stars, including James, decided to skip Rio.
Also chosen were: Golden State’s Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes; Toronto’s Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan; Indiana’s Paul George; Chicago’s Jimmy Butler; Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins and the Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan.
Irving was the MVP of the 2014 Basketball World Cup on a U.S. team that included Thompson, Cousins and DeRozan and easily won gold.
The Americans should roll into Rio as the favorites. Yet they won’t look as imposing as expected after the withdrawals of NBA MVP Stephen Curry and All-Stars such as Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul and James Harden.
“As far as the talent goes and the level of play, I’m pretty sure that that’s still going to be the same,” Anthony said. “We don’t have as many of the big-name guys that we’ve had before, but I think so far this is a great group of guys and they’re hungry. They want to play.”
USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said having a national team pool, which he began in 2005, always has the Americans ready for player losses. There were 31 players in this year’s and he had to go deep into it — and eventually even beyond it — to find 12 as the usual factors that can knock players out were joined by the Zika virus and other concerns in Brazil.