No Durant for Team USA

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

Any time you go on vacation, it’s a startling wake-up call that the world continues to move along just fine without you paying any attention to it. While I was down in Nashville last week listening to bluegrass music and eating my weight’s worth of fried chicken, collard greens, and mac and cheese, the 24-hour news cycle kept churning, the twitter feed continued to pile up, and some fairly significant news stories broke in the interim. Although the tentative agreement reached regarding an Anthony Bennett-for-Thad Young swap brought a smile to my face, I’ll wait to fully flesh that situation out when any such deal becomes official in a couple weeks. Instead, let’s start with one of the news items that bummed me out: the withdrawal of Kevin Durant from Team USA.

Thursday night, Durant announced he would not be participating in the World Cup of Basketball, citing ‘physical and mental fatigue’ and a desire to focus on the upcoming NBA season. Less than a week from the horrific Paul George injury, it’s impossible not to believe seeing his teammate go down in such a brutal fashion did not play a role in Durant’s decision. I’m sure he’s worn down, but is KD really going to go through all of training camp and then bow out with just 5 practices and 3 exhibition games remaining before the tournament actually begins? This is a tournament, by the way, which won’t be happening for another 5 years (the next World Cup of Basketball will not take place until 2019, to get it off the same year as the FIFA World Cup).

I think it’s pretty clear that George’s injury threw the possibility of injury right in Durant’s face, and he decided the risk was too great. Still, this isn’t an indictment of Durant; he’s not being paid to play for Team USA so he’s under no obligation to participate. I’m not going to beat the patriotic drum if the man wants to focus on the job he actually makes millions of dollars to do and try and earn his elusive first NBA championship.

Even so, as a fan, the loss of Durant is something you really hate to see happen. One of the big reasons people cite not caring about MLS in the United States is it’s not the best talent that sport has to offer. Now, with superstars like LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Carmelo Anthony already not participating in this tournament, and Durant and some of that next tier of stars dropping out, interest level for this World Cup continues to plummet when it struggled to move the needle for anyone outside the hard-core basketball fan in the first place. The drop-off between watching Durant and someone like Chandler Parsons is as wide as my expanding belt line after a week of southern cooking.

Durant’s absence also further complicates the dearth of big men for Team USA following the earlier withdrawals of Kevin Love, Blake Griffin, and LaMarcus Aldridge. The Oklahoma City star is tailor-made to play power forward in the international game, and really, against everyone except Spain, the true 7-footer could play center without it really being a problem defensively. The Gasol brothers (especially Marc) are the exceptions in the tournament of players who really do damage banging around on the low block, which would have given the slender Durant problems in such a scenario.

Still, any line-up shifting Durant to the 5-spot would be nearly impossible for opposing countries to defend (just imagine an uber-small, super-shooting line-up with Derrick Rose driving the lane and having the option to kick out to Durant, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, or Kyle Korver). Instead, behind Anthony Davis, the US will have to turn to the limited Kenneth Faried, the mercurial DeMarcus Cousins, or maybe even a surprise entry like Mason Plumlee. Seriously, you could let all three Plumlee brothers on the court at the same time playing 7-on-5 and I’d still probably rather have Durant. No matter how you slice it, Team USA losing Durant is not only a significant blow to its title hopes, but also the prospects of this international tournament catching on with the casual basketball fan. And that’s a big loss for everybody.