Durant won't be there, USA will

SAN JUAN (William Rosario's Somewhere in the Americas) - Kevin Durant withdrew from participating in the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup. It is a sad day, not only for the USA but for the international basketball community.

Unfortunately, the biggest international stage won't have its main attraction.

Durant had one of those unforgettable runs at the last World Cup, in Turkey in 2010. Against a hostile home crowd, when the Turkish national team seemed poised to shock the world and win the championship, Durant was lethal. He hit three-pointer after three-pointer with a cold-blood, sharp-shooting ability that basically cemented his status as one of the greats, maybe the greatest offensive player in the world of his generation.

That ended up being a 28-point performance in the Final, with seven three-pointers and five rebounds. A beast. He averaged 22.8 points and 6.1 rebounds in a title run for the USA team.

Flash forward to this decision and there's obvious sadness for the fact that we won't be able to witness KD putting on that kind of a show in a couple of weeks in Spain.

But I think it is important to maintain perspective and not fall in the trap of over-reacting over a couple of points of this decision.

First - and this came as a bit of a surprise coming from USA media - I heard the crazy claim by some colleagues that have turned to call Duran a "quitter".

I repeat, a "quitter".

That bothers me because it is unfair. Durant and quitter should not be in the same statement. He has been an integral and key player on two gold medals for the USA team and should be able to make the decision to not play and end up unscathed in the process.

We should not underestimate how hard - even for a USA team - it is to win an international event.

A player with his accolades on the international scene, with those kinds of performances, for any other country would be revered and elevated to high priest status.

In Germany he would be Dirk Nowitzki, in Argentina Manu Ginobili, in Brazil Oscar Schmidt. And he would be allowed to make whatever decision he wanted to make when it came to dressing up for his national team, without being called a quitter. If you ask me, he should be left alone, thanked for representing his country and winning gold medals in the process.

The other point that we should maintain perspective on, is the fact that I have also heard colleagues describe this now Durant-less team as not being a contender.

That is plain crazy.

A team that has Derrick Rose, Damian Lillard, Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Klay Thompson, DeMar DeRozan, Gordon Hayward, Chandler Parsons, Kyle Korver, Kenneth Faried, Andre Drummond, Demarcous Cousins, Mason Plumlee and Anthony Davis... to choose from is a contender and in my opinion a favorite along with home team Spain. There's also Coach K.

I think they are alright. Any other country, except maybe the Spaniards, would trade their last 14 players for those 14 in a heartbeat.

It will definitely be more difficult, they won't have their previous number one option, but let's not kid ourselves...they have plenty.

It's sad that Durant won't be there, but this'll be another one of the guys' World Cup, I'm sure.

William Rosario

FIBA

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