USA - Roster decisions await Team USA
Las Vegas camps will determine men's basketball squad for Olympics. With the Beijing Olympics less than three months away, Team USA's quest to recapture the men's basketball gold medal will resume in June in Las Vegas.
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Las Vegas camps will determine men's basketball squad for Olympics.
With the Beijing Olympics less than three months away, Team USA's quest to recapture the men's basketball gold medal will resume in June in Las Vegas.
USA Basketball will have a minicamp June 27 to 29 at Cox Pavilion to decide the final 12-man roster. That group will reconvene July 20 to 25 at a Las Vegas site to be determined, ending with the Americans' lone pre-Olympic tuneup against the Canadian National Team at 5 p.m. July 25 at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Tickets, priced from $12 to $75, will go on sale at 10 a.m. today at the Thomas & Mack box office and UNLVTickets.com.
Jerry Colangelo, the team's managing director, said only a few roster spots will be up for grabs in Las Vegas, and the roster must be turned in by July 1 to FIBA, basketball's world governing body. The competition will be fierce.
"Right now I think we're looking at 15, 16 (players) in the minicamp," Colangelo said Tuesday from Chicago. "But it's a moving target. That number may change because of injuries and availability."
Colangelo will spend the next few weeks meeting with players to make sure they will be able to play in Las Vegas and Beijing. He is to meet with Dwyane Wade today to check on the Miami Heat guard's progress after left knee surgery. Wade did not play for Team USA last summer when it won the FIBA Americas Tournament in Las Vegas.
Colangelo also needs an update on the condition of forward Chris Bosh, the Toronto Raptors All-Star who hurt his right knee in March. A foot injury caused Bosh to miss last summer with Team USA.
Among other players with injury concerns are the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant (back, finger), the Detroit Pistons' Chauncey Billups (hamstring) and the Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James (back). Bryant and Billups are still competing in the NBA playoffs.
"There's no one who has a serious enough injury that they're eliminated from consideration, but we have some people we need to talk to and see where they're at," Colangelo said. "We have to be very careful about not using up a roster spot on someone who can't (play in the Olympics)."
Colangelo said players such as Lamar Odom and Carlos Boozer could be considered for the roster, even though neither participated with Team USA in the last two years because of personal reasons and injuries.