Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins is still in the running to represent his country in the World Cup. Yahoo! Sports reported Monday afternoon that USA Basketball made the first cuts to its 20-man roster and Cousins was not among them.
The Washington Wizards backcourt of John Wall and Bradley Beal along with Atlanta Hawks forward Paul Millsap were the first three players to be trimmed off of Team USA’s roster. With the loss of the Indiana Pacers’ Paul George due to injury, the roster now stands at 16.
Cousins and the rest of the USA squad are currently in the middle of a 12-day hiatus after concluding training camp last Friday in Las Vegas. They will continue preparing for this year’s FIBA World Cup on Aug 14 in Chicago with another mini-camp plus an exhibition contest against Brazil on Aug 16.
Cousins remains a strong candidate to make the roster that will compete in international play later this month in Spain. However, there have been reports suggesting that Cousins may not make the team over Brooklyn Nets center Mason Plumlee, who was a late addition to the USA Basketball roster last week. Team USA officials have until Aug 29 to submit its official roster for the World Cup tournament.
“We haven’t made a decision on the 12 and we won’t for a while,” USA Basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski told media in Las Vegas last Thursday. “But we definitely will take a long look at the bigs.”
Along with Cousins, the following players remain in the running to make USA’s World Cup roster.
- Andre Drummond
- Mason Plumlee
- Kenneth Faried
- Gordon Hayward
- Chandler Parsons
- Anthony Davis
- Kevin Durant
- Damian Lillard
- Kyle Korver
- James Harden
- DeMar DeRozan
- Klay Thompson
- Kyrie Irving
- Stephen Curry
- Derrick Rose
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