National Basketball Association

Team USA names replacements for Bradley Beal, Kevin Love ahead of Olympics

Updated Jul. 23, 2021 3:37 p.m. ET

It has been anything but smooth sailing for the United States men's national team in Las Vegas, and now, the team's road to Olympic gold might have just gotten harder.

Amidst some on-court struggles in exhibition games ahead of Tokyo, the squad has also had roster issues to deal with throughout this week.

On Wednesday, it was announced that Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal entered health and safety protocols, and on Thursday he was officially ruled out of the Olympics.

That was a huge blow, as Beal was second in the NBA in scoring this past season, at 31.3 points per game. In addition, he was selected to his third All-Star Game while being named third-team All-NBA.

The loss of Beal was just the first blow to Team USA, which also announced that Detroit Pistons forward Jerami Grant entered health and safety protocols, though he did not test positive for COVID-19.

As if that weren't enough, Team USA was hit with another blow Friday morning, when the team announced that Cavaliers forward Kevin Love also would not make the trip to Tokyo, opting to continue to recover from a right calf injury that marred his 2020-21 season.

While Grant's status remains uncertain, team officials moved ahead and announced replacements for Beal and Love, naming Keldon Johnson and JaVale McGee to the squad on Friday.

Johnson, a 6-foot-5 forward, has two years of experience playing under USA head coach Gregg Popovich with the Spurs and averaged 12.8 points and 6.0 rebounds this past season. He's also pretty athletic.

In choosing McGee, the team took a drastic turn from Love, who was on the roster to draw opposing centers away from the key with his outside shooting skills.

McGee is not a scorer, averaging 7.8 PPG through a 13-year NBA career. He has taken only 57 3-pointers in that time, making just 10 (17.5%). McGee can provide interior defense, however, having averaged 1.5 blocks per game in his career.

The roster uncertainty comes along with uneven play in Team USA's Olympics tune-ups so far.

After losing the first two exhibition games to Nigeria and Australia, Team USA finally found a reason to feel good about itself with a 108-80 win over Argentina on Tuesday.

In a recent interview with Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant explained that the rough start was to be expected from a team still looking to mesh together on the floor.

"We’re a team that’s still coming together and trying to find our identity," he said. "We have so many great players that you can play so many different ways, and we are indecisive at times on defense and offense. In the midst of us figuring it out, these teams are established, and they’re running their sets. We’re working on our sets. The stars were kind of aligned for us to lose early on."

With all of the roster shuffling, building continuity might be harder than ever.

Team USA's game against the Australian national team, scheduled for Friday night, has also been canceled, leaving the squad with even less time on the court to build chemistry with the current group while still searching for two more able bodies to take to Tokyo.

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