11:05am: As first confirmed by Spears (via Twitter), White has officially replaced Leonard on Team USA’s roster, according to a press release.
“I am happy to announce that Derrick will compete at his first Olympic Games on the heels of a championship season in Boston,” managing director Grant Hill said in a statement. “We look forward to him joining the team in the coming days as we continue preparations for Paris. “I want to thank Kawhi for his commitment to the USA Men’s National Team. He earned the opportunity to represent the United States, but USA Basketball and Clippers leadership felt it’s important to allow Kawhi to prepare for the NBA season.”
Team USA now features three members of the defending champion Celtics, with White joining teammates Jayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday.
9:57am: Star Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard will withdraw from Team USA’s roster ahead of the Olympics in Paris, sources tell Shams Charania and Joe Vardon of The Athletic (Twitter link).
USA Basketball intends to name a replacement for Leonard on the 12-team roster that will travel to Paris, with Celtics guard Derrick White considered a strong candidate, according to Charania and Vardon.
Leonard was sidelined at the end of the 2023/24 season due to right knee inflammation. He missed the last eight games of the regular season and first game of the playoffs due to the ailment, returned for Game 2 and Game 3 vs. Dallas, then sat out the final three contests of the Clippers’ first-round loss.
After reporting to Team USA’s training camp, he said over the weekend that his knee had improved in recent weeks enough for him to play this summer. Neither The Athletic’s report nor USA Basketball’s official statement (Twitter link) on Leonard’s exit from the team specifically mentions that knee, but it sounds as if the forward’s health is the motivating factor for the decision.
“Kawhi has been ramping up for the Olympics over the past several weeks and had a few strong practices in Las Vegas,” Team USA’s statement reads. “He felt ready to compete. However, he respects that USA Basketball and the Clippers determined it’s in his best interest to spend the remainder of the summer preparing for the upcoming season rather than participating in the Olympic Games in Paris.”
While that statement suggests the decision was made by the Clippers and Team USA, Marc J. Spears of Andscape (Twitter link) hears from a source that Leonard’s camp reached out a couple days ago to USA Basketball to express concern.
whats andscape?
Landscape without the “L” and with a capital “A” …
Of course he is
Leonard is somebody you never want to be the man on your team when he gets hurt all the time.
Lol how quickly they forget
I haven’t forgotten you said White wasn’t one of the NBA’s top 50 players a month or two back.
Yet you forgot about Kawhi Leonard being an all-time great basketball player. Lol glad to see you’re hanging on my every word tho. Hopefully you’re learning something.
I forgot about Kawhi? Have you taken up drinking? What are you talking about?
Poor Sankara is having a hard time apparently.
A injured player can’t lead. His body is telling him his best days are over.
Lol. Is anyone actually surprised by this news? I don’t know why he was even on the initial roster to begin with.
Now let’s see how long this drags into the regular season
Ready for hardenball renaissance
He was there out of respect I guess. White was probably on the list in the beginning.
But, I though Leonard was on “load management.” This guy just can’t get healthy. The Spurs got lucky during the 2014 NBA Finals….he has never been the same since.
We’re just gonna forget Toronto’s chip now?
No, he won with Toronto but the Warriors were not at full strength….Durant and Klay were both hurt in 2019…injuries do happen.
Injuries are never an excuse. In fact the Warriors 4 championships were because of the other teams injuries many times. I think one year every team they faced was missing their starting point guard
I kinda wish all the C’s would’ve turned it down that’s going to be a lot of basketball in 2yrs could cause a lot of injuries that’s y I don’t see them repeating (hopefully I’m 100% wrong)
Middleton and Holiday played after the late finish to the Bucks championship. It very well could have affected them the following season. Keeping in mind those playoffs didn’t end until well into July.
Middleton was useless after his Olympic participation. Injured and barely played the next season. The end of this year he finally started looking good.
Windhorst said on his podcast last week about kawhi. Was we will see how long he lasts. It’s never about practice but the next few days after and then you usually hear something about his health. Sounds like he didn’t think he was healthy going into Olympics or just figured kawhi probably can’t go through an Olympics and NBA regular season together without missing significant time.
Wonder if the narrative changed when PG left for Philly. Too much depends on his health.
You’re going to want these “glue” guys
Never forget that Popovich & SAS have been the worst team in the Western Conference ever since Kawhi left. Zero playoff series wins in that 6yr span. Other than them getting lucky in the lottery & drafting Wembo they’ve not only been terrible, they’ve been pretty boring as well.
The whole point of moving him was to rebuild…… they didn’t get lucky. They put themselves in position for that draft.
The point of moving him wasn’t to rebuild at all. They got a HOF level guy in return for him (Derozan) plus a starter level 5 (Poeltl). And even if that was their aim, it’s been 6+ yrs & they’re still the worst team in the West. How long does a rebuild take?
Ask Detroit that question.. ever since the Going To Work Pistons (Ben Wallace, Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince) they’ve been in rebuild mode. That’s been since 2008. I think they finally have the right guy running the show now in Langdon. At least he’s honest and everything.
Is it that uncomfortable for y’all to criticize Popovich lol?
They didn’t even have a top 10 pick until 2022. So it’s not like they’ve just swung and missed on can’t miss prospects. The first three seasons with DeRozan they finished 32-39, 33-39, and 34-48 so they’ve hardly bottomed out either. Plus DeRozan is more very good than a HoF player imo, he’s never been the “best player on a legit championship contender” quality. So arguably they spent 3 years in a failed retool and then 2 years in a rebuild that’s still going on and a reasonable expectation is that they should be exiting their rebuild after this season (or next if they suffer a bunch of injuries this year).
Their player development is probably due for a little criticism. Like I do get the point that if we’re putting Pop/Spurs as this hub for great player development they probably should’ve churned out a better player than Devin Vassell or Keldon Johnson at this point. But without a true star player its hard to make any sort of noise, especially with how loaded the West has been the past 8-10 years.
First season they had DeMar they went to the playoffs so I’m pretty sure they had more than 32 Ws. DeMar is definitely a HOFer & he definitely has been the best player on a legit title contender (though this has never been what determines if a guy is a HOFer or not). But overall no excuse that y’all can try to give Pop holds water at all. Whether it was a retool or a rebuild or whatever you wanna call it the fact remains that they’ve been trash since Kawhi left. Popovich is a genius coach only when he has a guy like Tim Duncan or Kawhi Leonard. Other than that he’s as average as any other coach. That’s definitely what the #s are screaming.
WAIT! You think that a coach can only win if they have good players?
This is good stuff.
And so begins the latest chapter in the book: “Kawhi: a life of load management and maximum salaries”
Forgot about the championships and MVPs I guess
Forget? No. I looked it up to verify, and what I found was zero regular season mvp awards, and a Finals mvp back in 2014. Also, his last appearance in the Finals was 2019.
Would it be better if it was called: “Kawhi, Load Managing Since 2019 While Still Making Maximum Salary”?
“Kawhi: Basketball legend” is prob the best way to go
low low low bar for being called a legend
Sure @Sank..if it’s his autobiography (with you or Julian as his ghost writer).
Careful your playing with a nut bag who thinks DeMar DeRozan is a HOFer guy who’s barely the best player on horrible teams
Al, I get what you say, and it’s quite true since signing with the Clippers. He has not been available for the most part. He still made a big impact when healthy, though not winning another championship.
The thing Is, winning in the NBA Is a very difficult thing. There are many superstars and great teams, and only one Is crowned champion each year.
Kawhi not only accomplished the 2014 title as a Spur, a dynasty, in the role of young player, superstar-potential, but within the Spurs’ system (a really clear team-oriented approach in which the self oriented superstar doesn’t thrive). He dominated the Lebron matchup un the Finals, before getting into His prime (he was 23 years old).
Then, not only he dominated (remember that he was torching Peak GSW in WCF until the Pachulia footslide) after, he, in 5 months, brought the first championship ever to Toronto, by absolutely taking over at Will during the playoffs.
That sense of being able to take over and dominate, being literally unstoppable, and especially during the playoffs and clutch time, no matter what team ir matchup he was facing, Is what makes him a legend.
The most feared players un the playoffs, from an individual matchup standpoint, that you can’t really stop, and can win games, series and championships, with their takeover ability, during 2014-2022, were to me, KD and Kawhi, both at the same level.
Should have been Brunson but I’m glad it wasn’t want all the Knicks fresh for the season
They intentionally didn’t call up Jalen Brown… What a joke!
Wow, right !! Why not Jaylen Brown? Especially since Kawhi Leonard is a forward.
I think Brunson still injured. Yes play Jaylen. Make him tired for the new season. Go Knicks!!!
Doesn’t the Olympic Team accept load management?
I guess Grant Hill thought he was asked to select an NBA All Decade team. KL, among others, should never have been selected to the team. The Olympic team isn’t supposed to be assembled to honor NBA achievement. The US is fortunate that KL bowed out now. Who knows if White was the preferred choice now, certainly guys aren’t waiting around on the possibility that someone will bow out.