When the Team USA men's basketball squad opens up Olympics competition on Sunday morning at Stade Pierre-Mauroy, they'll be doing so against three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic and the Serbian national team. That makes the following updates on Team USA center Joel Embiid and Anthony Davis, provided by Grant Afseth of Essentially Sports, even more crucial:
“Joel Embiid will not practice with Team USA today as he deals with an illness,” Afseth noted in the first of two tweets sent this morning. He followed that tweet with a note from Team USA men's basketball coach Steve Kerr, who provided some information on the status of back-up center Anthony Davis as well after the Los Angeles Lakers big man missed practice on Thursday.
“For those asking about where Anthony Davis was during Thursday's practice, Steve Kerr mentioned he did not participate due to illness. However, Davis practiced today.”
Nikola Jokic is arguably the best basketball player in the world, and a big problem — both literally and figuratively — for any team, no matter how much talent they possess. No team in the Olympic tournament has more high-level talent than Team USA, but with both Joel Embiid and Anthony Davis less than 100 percent, the Americans will have their work cut out for them as they try to avoid an opening game upset for the first time since 2004, when the Americans were stunned by Puerto Rico in a 19-point defeat.
However, there is good news for Team USA: Kerr stated that he believed his squad would have everyone ready to go when the games began on Sunday, and that apparently includes Kevin Durant, who practiced for the third consecutive time on Saturday morning after missing all five pre-Olympics tune-up games over the past two weeks.
Who will close for Team USA at the Summer Olympics?
So with Kevin Durant (likely) returning to action and both Joel Embiid and Anthony Davis apparently not at risk of missing any time, this raises a very important question that Steve Kerr and his illustrious coaching staff have surely been considering over the past few weeks as they've prepared for the Olympics: when Team USA faces some adversity and goes into a 4th quarter with the game very much hanging in the balance, who will be the five players that Team USA relies on to close things out?
Fans have called for Anthony Davis to start over Joel Embiid after Davis looked significantly more comfortable during Team USA's five exhibition games, but what matters more than who starts is who finishes. Don't be surprised to see Davis as the lone big man in Team USA closing lineups, flanked by Team USA flag bearer LeBron James and Stephen Curry for sure. Given Anthony Edwards' ascent during the most recent FIBA World Championships, it's likely that he'll get one of the five closing spots as well. That leaves one spot open — a spot that Jrue Holiday has occupied for much of the Summer. However, depending on how healthy Kevin Durant actually is, he could be the final man in Team USA's closing five.
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