Olympic bore: It's time to shake up Team USA roster, and here's how
When the list of 30 finalists for Team USA's 2016 Olympics men's basketball team for Rio de Janeiro this summer was released Monday, my pulse did not quicken.
On the list were the NBA's usual superstar suspects. Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James are on it. One or both could become the first American men to play in four Olympics. Chris Paul, gunning for Olympics No. 3, is on the list again. Even the emasculated Kevin Love, a 2012 team member, got the obligatory call.
All in all, nine players who were on the 2012 gold-medal-winning team in London, and still one-fourth of the 2008 team that took gold in Beijing, remain candidates for the 12 spots on the 2016 team. Among the nine on the '12 team, realistically only two of those roster spots -- the ones held by Love and Andre Iguodala (more only if LeBron and others opt out) -- might dangle vacancy signs when tryouts start in Las Vegas following the NBA season. Thank goodness Kobe Bryant bowed out early.
We've seen this movie too many times. Yes, we've conquered the world a few times over, but it's also become boring.
It's time to change the game and focus on the three things that matter most alongside gold medals: Entertainment and intrigue; guaranteeing the roster is open to more players by staying fluid and fresh; plus the critical combo play of raising player safety and lowering owner risk (thank me later, Mark Cuban).
There's one answer that addresses all of those concerns. It's been brought up before, shot down before it got its due consideration and labeled "stupid" by Kobe Bryant. But that was when Team USA was still concerned about its status against the rest of the world. With dominance once again established, it's time for a new era in Olympic basketball.
So with apologies to Warriors wizard Steph Curry, who will make his first Team USA squad this summer after he turns 28, we're turning Team USA into a 24-and-under thing. And it's going to be awesome.
Start with entertainment and intrigue. We've seen Melo shoot the international lights out. We've watched LeBron play in five consecutive Junes. In fact, of the nine players from the 2012 team who are again candidates for 2016, only Anthony Davis is younger than 27. 'Melo and LeBron are 31. CP3 is 30.
We're good. We don't need to see another sequel. But a group of fresh-faced newbies who are primed to represent their country? That's something we'd love to see. And it would be an ultra-competitive squad, too.
A 24-and-under Team USA could break down something like this:
Guards: Kyrie Irving, Bradley Beal, Victor Oladipo, Brandon Knight, C.J. McCollum
Forwards: Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, Harrison Barnes, Julius Randle, Karl-Anthony Towns
Centers: Andrew Drummond, Jahlil Okafor
And there's plenty of other viable candidates to invite to a training camp: Khris Middleton, Jabari Parker, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Tobias Harris, Derrick Favors, Nerlens Noel among others.
Could such a squad take down Spain in a gold-medal game? I don't see why not. And it would check the box on keeping the roster fluid and invigorated by allowing more players to represent the stars and stripes.
Now, on to player safety and owner risk. We are hyper-conscious these days about player health. Each season seems to deliver a longer list of devastating injuries and the questioning of the cause. One common theme is that players' bodies simply can't withstand the accumulating wear and tear of a lifetime of playing nearly year-round basketball, often starting in elementary and middle school. Yet we keep asking them to do it.
NBA players put their bodies through a grueling, six-month, 82-game regular season and then the postseason. Human bodies, even world-class athletes, require rest. And it must be repeated that Team USA is not a two-week summer exercise. Training camp begins in June, just weeks after the NBA Finals. Once the 12-man roster is set, July is filled with practices and a series of exhibition games played domestically and internationally. Then comes the Olympics. In 2012, the gold-medal game was played on Aug. 12, about six weeks before NBA training camps opened.
NBA owners can only cross their fingers and hope their highest-paid players, the superstars their teams depend on, make it through healthy enough and fresh enough to start the new NBA season at full strength. Cuban, the outspoken Dallas Mavericks' owner, has been a critic for years, and for good reason. High-profile injuries like the broken leg suffered by Pacers star Paul George during a Team USA scrimmage in 2014 bring into question the risks involved.
Take the nine players from the 2012 team who are candidates for 2016. NBA owners will pay them this season roughly $148 million. And that's just nine players. In the case of Oklahoma City for example, it will, in all likelihood, have two indispensable stars on Team USA that earn a combined $38 million this season.
Only New Orleans' Davis will make less than $16 million. He'll earn $7 million this season, a fraction of the $25.7 million the Pelicans organization will owe him for the 2019-2020 season, after which he will again be eligible to make the 2020 U.S. Olympic team.
That is, unless it is a 24-and-under squad by then.
Those 12 24-and-under players listed above will collectively earn roughly $87 million this season. Most younger players haven't reached a big payday yet, with a few exceptions such as Irving ($16.4 million), Knight ($13.5 million) and Leonard ($16.5 million).
Have no sympathy for owners if you like, but whether a multi-millionaire or billionaire, superstar salaries are costly. And costlier still is not having a superstar, or two, on the floor during the NBA season. The Cavs without LeBron? The Warriors without Steph? Forget about it.
Younger players are at least less of a financial risk, and in most cases, an injury won't decimate their team's ability to compete.
Because whether we're talking about player safety or roster fluidity, it's all about entertainment — in the Olympics or on an NBA court. The familiar names on Team USA's likely roster are fun to watch, sure, but another sequel doesn't engender the same enthusiasm it has in years past.
Watching the young guns go for gold, well, that would make my pulse quicken.
