After committing to join the US National Team in Spain for the FIBA World Cup, Kevin Duran has decided to withdraw from the team two days before the start of training camp.
The reason why Love decided to cancel his appearance is due to his "current status." The 25 year old power forward is currently on trade status from Minnesota and that an injury incurred from practice and the games may impact his chance for a good negotiation.
At present, Timberwolves is in talks with other NBA Team including the Cleveland Cavaliers with regards to trading Love. On the other hand, Love has already said to his team that he will be leaving them next season through free agency if the trade won't push through. For Cleveland's case, they won't be able to make deals with Andrew Wiggins, the teams No1 Pick, until Aug 23 as Wiggins has already signed his rookie contract with the Cavaliers.
According to US basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo "The fact is we can only look to the players that we have available. Our job is to get the job done with our very, very deep roster, and we're anxious to get things started."
US Team will start their training in Las Vegas last Monday. But was not only love who decided to leave the team, he is joined by Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge. This would have to mean the remaining big players for the team are DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, Andre Drummond, Kenneth Faried and Chandler Parsons.
The FIBA World Cup will begin on Aug 30 and the team can still add players to their team but Colangelo thinks that it is not likely to happen saying "There is no one to add at this stage. We will adjust accordingly. It opens up other opportunities for other guys."
Aside from the stellar players, they will also be joined by forwards Tobias Harris, Doug McDermott Cody Zeller and centers Miles Plumlee and Tyler Zeller. For now, US Coach his happy with his team's roster of players saying that his group has more experience and more talented than the previous team. He said "We're more talented than 2010. I'm not demeaning that team, but those guys were young."
