Team USA basketball didn’t meet expectations by any means this summer. They barely beat teams such as Turkey but this was partially due to star NBA players such as James Harden, Damian Lillard and DeMar DeRozan deciding not to play.
USA recently took a 89-79 loss to France in the FIBA Basketball World Cup and Donovan Mitchell was asked about players who left the team. Mitchell didn’t really pay too much attention to those who didn’t stay but gave credit to the guys who stuck with the team and contributed, according to Aris Barkas of Eurohoops.
“If they didn’t come here, that’s on them,” Mitchell said. “On top of that guys, there are also those who didn’t make it they that want to compete too. I know how I feel and I know how those guys feel. Why don’t you focus on the ones who do that? Our seasons have ended and we came right here for work with coach Pop and for all these other coaches. For us, it’s not about who is not here. We have 12 guys that wanted to compete for America, just like every other country. It sucks that some in our country some people don’t feel that way about us but we don’t care. We wanted to compete and we did.”
Losing in FIBA shouldn’t bother Team USA too much. The Olympics are next summer and that’s the biggest prize for them. They’ll get guys such as Harden and Lillard back and likely Lebron James.
