Pacific Notes: Beal, Green, Milojevic, Vezenkov

Bradley Beal lost a chance to play in the last Olympics after being placed in COVID protocols, and it doesn’t appear he’ll be part of this year’s event either, writes Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic. The Suns star wasn’t included on the 41-player pool list that was released Tuesday.

“It’s a difficult exercise because we have so many talented players and so many guys who one could make an argument for being on the list,” USA Basketball managing director Grant Hill said during a media conference call. “I had some great conversations with Brad last summer. That was tough. Tough decisions to get it to 41. I’ll be honest. I didn’t think we would be at 41. I thought we would have fewer names. I thought maybe 30 and it was really hard to get to 41 and I imagine it will be very difficult to get to 12.”

Beal remains a productive scorer, averaging 18.0 PPG in his first season with Phoenix, but injuries likely factored into the decision to keep him off the pool list. Beal has been limited to 50 and 40 games the past two seasons, and he has only appeared in 20 of the Suns’ first 44 games.

“I’ll say this with history as sort of a guide here,” Hill added. “A lot can, and will, happen between now and July and we’ve added players to that list. We’ve been fluid at times. We’ll continue to monitor, we’ll continue to evaluate and we’ll see where we are when we get on that plane and head overseas.”

There’s more from the Pacific Division:

• Warriors forward Draymond Green was also noticeably absent from the pool list, and Hill indicated that his two suspensions this season played a role in the decision, per Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. “His contributions have been significant, and he is a real part of the legacy of this organization for his excellence,” Hill said of Green, a two-time gold medal winner. “But in lieu of what’s transpired this year, we made a decision to not have him on this list.” 
• The Warriors will wear a “DM” patch for the rest of the season to honor assistant coach Dejan Milojevic, who died suddenly last week, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. The team paid tribute to Milojevic with a ceremony before tonight’s game (video link from Kendra Andrews of ESPN).
• Kings forward Sasha Vezenkov will be reevaluated in seven to 14 days after suffering a moderate right ankle sprain Monday night, according to Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. Vezenkov was dealing with a sprained left ankle going into the game, Anderson adds.