All 12 players selected for the Olympic team, including Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard, will be present and able to participate when training camp begins in Las Vegas next week, Team USA coach Steve Kerr said Thursday.
“We have been in constant contact,” Kerr said in a conference call with reporters. “So we expect all 12 players to be ready to go.”
Leonard, who turns 33 on Saturday, missed the final three games of the Clippers’ season after his surgically repaired right knee did not respond as he had hoped in Game 3 of the Clippers’ first-round series against the Dallas Mavericks. This was the fourth straight season in which the playoffs ended prematurely – or not at all – due to injury.
“We’re going to do the right thing,” he told reporters after playing 25 minutes in that game against the eventual Western Conference champion. “Time will tell. But we’re doing all the right things.”
The only thing the injury doesn’t seem to do is take Leonard out of action for Team USA, something that has at least been in question in NBA circles over the past few weeks.
Kerr made it clear that he expects Leonard and everyone else on the team to be available once training camp begins on July 6.
“We’ve been monitoring this the whole time,” Kerr said. “We’ve been in contact with Kawhi and his team, and he’s been training now for the last two weeks. So, obviously every spot on the roster is important. You never know how things are going to go, with injuries, things can happen.” You never know. So we’re in touch with everyone, and we’ll continue to stay in touch with the whole group as we head to Las Vegas next week and you never know how things are going to go. There’s always a chance for it to change.
“So I leave everything as a possibility, based on injuries, on readiness, whatever. But at this point, we fully expect all 12 players to be ready to go.”
Also among them is Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, who suffered a season-ending hamstring injury in the Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Boston Celtics. But Haliburton, while admitting he was initially concerned about his ability to participate, said Thursday that he is back to normal and fully prepared to go to camp.
“I’ll be honest, I think when it happened against Boston and I knew I wasn’t going to play the rest of the series, there was a little bit of concern about my condition,” said Haliburton, who previously injured the same hamstring in January. “But I think our medical team did a great job.” Great about reassuring me that they had confidence that I would be okay in this moment and if I did the right things, kind of balancing the rest, but at the same time strengthening it as well because I took time off from basketball, and I didn’t touch a basketball for three weeks, but I tried to With movement and muscle strengthening too, because you have to do all of that.
“So I feel confident about it. I would say that the last couple of weeks, I mean, since they said they had no concerns, it’s allowed me to not really have any concerns. Now that I’m really impacting basketball, moving a lot, I really don’t have any concerns.”
In addition to questions about injury availability before camp, another lingering question is which five players Kerr will start from a roster full of stars. Kerr said that’s still up in the air and that training camp in Las Vegas will help determine that.
“It’s a great question, and the staff and I have talked about this a lot,” Kerr said. “It’s a good problem to have, but I think all 12 players on this list will be in the Hall of Fame one day. So how do you pick five out of 12? The idea is to find combinations that click and, and find a two-way lineup that can be effective on both ends.” .
“So our big job in Las Vegas is to find five-player groups that fit and ask all 12 players to fully commit to the goal of winning a gold medal no matter what format it is, no matter who is playing.”