The brain-trust that is USA Basketball is approaching decision time on final roster cuts. The squad for the upcoming FIBA Championship will be announced shortly and with that four more players will have their international hoop dreams dashed. As it stands now there seems to be eight players who have carved out a role for themselves with the team and they all seem like locks to make the final cut. Anthony Davis, Derrick Rose, James Harden, Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving, DeMarcus Cousins, Rudy Gay and Kenneth Faried all seem to be locks which leaves just four spots for eight players. Let's take a look at who is on the way out.
The first guy out the door is going to be DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan just hasn't found his groove this go round with USA Basketball and if it weren't for the injury to Paul George DeMar would have been included in the first round of cuts. DeRozan didn't see any game action in the exhibition march against Brazil and he isn't likely to see any against the Domincans either. For DeRozan this has got to be all about the experience as he had the opportunity to play some competitive scrimmages against some of the league's best and receive coaching tips from a first-class ensemble of talent. DeMar might never play for the USA in international competitions as the talent pool is very deep; however, if he continues to develop himself into a Multi-threat wingman he could make some decisions for USA Basketball very difficult down the road.
The next guy to go is likely going to be Gordon Hayward. Hayward is a good player who plays on a poor Utah Jazz team where he gets to pretty much gets to do what he likes offensively. Put Hayward in a system surrounded by talented players all now his shot selection and poor true shooting percentage becomes exposed. He is a good defender but hardly a shut down kind of guy. He has historically put up good rebounding numbers too but when one really looks at the advanced metrics behind those averages, it is telling that the majority of his rebounds are positional possessions and uncontested rebounds. There are just better players in camp than Hayward this year and like DeRozan, Hayward should take from this experience and work to get invited back in a couple years.
With DeMar DeRozan and Gordon Hayward out that leaves two more cuts to get the roster down to the requisite 12 players. The next couple cuts are not going to be as easy.
It looks like Kyle Korver could become a sacrifice here. The USA could definitely use his shooting touch but Chandler Parsons brings a similar perimeter game but can be used more as a stretch player than Korver who is really just anchored to the three-point line. I do think that Korver has played well enough to earn a roster spot but with only so many to go around it has to come down to who can bring more to the table and right now that is Parsons.
I'm now of the belief that only these three cuts will be announced and that USA Basketball will take 13 players to Spain. Now they will ultimately have to announce their final 12 man roster but they aren't likely to handicap themselves should another injury be sustained by only taking 12 to start with.
If a player should injure himself his roster spot would have to be filled. Which would mean contacting the player and arranging flights. If the extra player is already there then all o that is avoided and the 13th player has been involved in team activities, practises and film sessions all along making the adjustment that much easier.
So just who is on the bubble as the 13th guy? Mason Plumlee is the most likely casualty; however, Damian Lillard and Klay Thompson are living on the fringe as well. Expect USA National Team manager director Jerry Colangelo and his coaching staff to have some very difficult decisions ahead of themselves.