Team USA Basketball announced Thursday the 28-player pool it will carry through the next three summers, a list full of NBA stars and specialty players. Positional depth and roster fit are always factors when considering who makes the team and who doesn’t, and with all the talent that exists in the league today, there will always be great players left on the outside looking in.
John Wall heads list of Team USA ‘snubs’
With so many good, young players in the NBA, a few had to be left out of the equation.
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Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade are headed into free agency this summer and were not expected to be part of the roster, but here are a few players (one point guard, one wing player and one frontcourt player) who were part of the conversation.
Wall might be the first omission you notice when poring over the roster. The Wizards' young point guard is having easily the best year of his career, but he was not selected as part of USA Basketball going forward. Really, this speaks to both the depth of the point guard position and the style of play that fits the international game.
With players like Kyrie Irving, Stephen Curry, Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook and Deron Williams on the roster, you can see why this team found it difficult to squeeze Wall in the mix, especially considering he struggles with his perimeter shot (31 percent from three) -- a necessity for these competitions.
The big man is part of a crowded frontcourt in Detroit, but the USA roster is perhaps even more cluttered. As many as 10 power forwards and centers will be part of the pool over the next three summers, and it's difficult to make a case for Monroe over any of them. He's been a good player, but he doesn't have the same sort of offensive value as a LaMarcus Aldridge or Blake Griffin, and he doesn't have the same defensive impact as a Dwight Howard or Andre Drummond. He's a bit in-between and, again, this team is deep.
Not too many second-rounders ascend as quickly as Parsons has in Houston, but his rise was cut just short of this selection. This is more about depth than anything, though. The third-year forward is the kind of utility player who's perfect for international play, and even more importantly, he can fire away from the three-point line. But with players like Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Paul George, not to mention the smorgasbord of other high-profile wing players on this team, it just wasn't in the cards for handsome Chandler Parsons.
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