Team USA will be without Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal for the Tokyo Olympics.
Team USA is working to replace Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal on the Olympics roster after he entered health and safety protocols, according to a report from Adrian Wojnarowski. Beal will not return to the team, according to USA Basketball.
With the end goal still being to win gold, Beal’s replacement must be well thought out. It’s clear that he was going to have a big role for Team USA in Tokyo if this did not happen. Finding that replacement will be hard, but it’s not something that will hurt the team if done right. Some players that deserve a look are Russell Westbrook, Jimmy Butler and Zion Williamson.
USA Basketball is working to replace guard Bradley Beal on the team’s Olympic roster ahead of trip to Japan, sources tell ESPN. Beal entered into health and safety protocols.
According to a report from Shams Charania, Jerami Grant has also entered health and safety protocol.
Team USA's Jerami Grant has entered health and safety protocols at Team USA camp, sources tell me and @joevardon. Grant has not tested positive for coronavirus. He and Bradley Beal are in protocols in Las Vegas.
“I like to know that people are scared to race me,” Lilly King said.
With one finger wag at the 2016 Rio Olympics, swimmer Lilly King became a viral sensation. And by the time the then-19-year-old swimmer left the Games with two gold medals in hand — one for the 100-meter breaststroke and another for the 4×100-meter medley relay — she was one of the sport’s biggest stars.
But, as she told NBC Sports, it highlighted her “alter ego” in the ready room, which significantly differs from her personality away from the pool, and now, she embraces being the “bad guy in the pool” because she says it’s empowering.
“I always like to say that I like to win the race before it starts,” King recently told For The Win.
“I like to know that I’m in control of the heat. I like to know that people are scared to race me, and knowing that your competitors are feeling all those different emotions before potentially the biggest race of their life makes you feel pretty good about yourself. So definitely, at least for me, makes me feel very sure of what I’m doing. So I think it just gives me confidence and helps me race faster.”
Now 24 years old and headed to her second Olympics, whatever King is doing for herself (and to her opponents) is working.
The Evansville, Indiana native qualified for Tokyo in the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke (she finished 12th in the latter in Rio). She’s the reigning world champ in the 100 and the 50-meter breaststroke — the 50 isn’t offered at the Olympics — and won the trials final in the 100 with a time of 1:04.79, which is nearly seven tenths off her own 1:04.13 world record.
King also owns five of the seven fastest times in the world this year in the 100, so she’s a strong favorite to successfully defend her Olympic title.
She also predicted that the American women could win every individual Olympic gold medal.
“What I love about what Lilly said is that is who she is,” said Greg Meehan, Team USA’s women’s swimming head coach.
“That is her personality. She is competitive. She is someone that we want on Team USA. She’s great on relays. And regardless of the context of that, the reality is that competitive spirit is what Team USA is all about, and as we get into international competition, that competitive spirit is what drives us.”
Annie Lazor lost her father a couple months ago and her teammate Lilly King made a promise to get her on the U.S. Olympic Team.
Before King competes, to be in control of her heat, she’s focused on psyching out her opponents, especially if she’s going against Russian rival Efimova. Whether she’s making extra noise, staring down other swimmers, asking them odd questions or pacing back and forth, the goal is to distract her competitors.
“Typically, when I’m racing Yulia, it’s a lot of just kind of staring at her and doing crazy things in the ready room,” King said. “I think staring at people is probably one of my favorite things to do.”
She said her staring freaks other swimmers out a bit and noted that “the showmanship of it all just kind of comes naturally” to her in the ready room or behind the blocks.
King also likes to be the last one to get up on the block before her races begin.
“That’s one of my I feel like kind of like my trademark things at this point,” she said. “I like I like to be in control of the heat, and I like everyone else to know they’re waiting for me. So that’s kind of one of my one of my go-tos.”
However, King said her efforts to psych out her opponents don’t impacter her own performances. When she gets up on the block to start a race, she said she’s “on autopilot” as her body takes over to churn out some of the fastest breaststroke times ever.
“If people are scared to race me, they’re not going to swim as fast,” King said. “I would definitely say [embracing a bad-guy mentality is] more male-dominated than female, but I’ve never really been one to follow the normal path.”
Yikes. The United States may need to start conjuring up a “redeem team” part two if they go into the Tokyo Games looking like this.
Team USA typically beats up on a few teams prior to going to the Olympics in order to get the assortment of players used to playing together. What doesn’t normally happen is for Team USA to lose their first two exhibition games, one of which was against Nigeria, who the U.S. defeated by 83 points in their last matchup.
Let’s give Nigeria credit, as they are filled with great young NBA talent in players like Gabe Vincent and Precious Achiuwa from the Miami Heat, and Caleb Agada who had a coming out party against Team USA. They proved it was no fluke beating the U.S. because the very next day they went on to beat the No. 4 team in the world, Argentina, by 23 points.
Perhaps the bigger story is that Nigeria is a solid squad that is looking like they can win an Olympic Medal in Tokyo, contrary to Stephen A. Smith’s disrespect.
Many were comparing the loss to Nigeria to when the 1992 Dream Team lost to the college all-stars in a scrimmage, and then proceeded to never lose another game while winning by an average of 44 points the rest of the way.
Theoretically, the Nigeria game was a wakeup call for the United States, and they should go on to win every game from that point until they were receiving their Gold Medals in Tokyo. Unfortunately, that was not the case as they dropped the very next game to Australia, who is led by NBA players Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, and Mattise Thybulle.
Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard, who are the two alphas on this U.S. team, combined for 39 points, but the U.S. was constantly exposed on the defensive side of the ball. They gave up an 11-1 Australia run in the final moments of the game, which led to this outburst by Greg Popovich.
Gregg Popovich gets into exchange with reporter after Team USA's loss to Australia. pic.twitter.com/5XEp114qIh
The losses can be attributed to a few factors. The first is the fact that Team USA only practiced four days prior to the exhibition matches. Not to diminish the US Select team, but most of those players outside of Darrius Garland (Cleveland Cavaliers), Tyler Herro (Miami Heat), Naz Reid (Minnesota Timberwolves), and Saddiq Bey (Detroit Pistons) have yet to play important minutes in the NBA, which likely allowed for the senior team to beat up on them and also could play a role in their lack of stamina during games.
The second reason, although they are loaded with scorers throughout the roster, is that the U.S. lacks defensive ability at the guard position and there is no rim protector. Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton, who are currently playing in the NBA Finals, will likely help out in guarding all of the stellar guards that are simply exposing the U.S. right now, but they won’t give the U.S. a rim protector. Bam Adebayo is likely the closest thing to that, but the other big men on the roster are Draymond Green (whose undersized and an offensive liability), and Kevin Love (who has never been a rim protector).
The biggest reason the U.S. is struggling is the fact that teams all over the world are filled with great players that take pride in international play, whereas the United States may feel that they can show up and beat everyone because of the “we are the United States” mindset.
Teams aren’t scared of the United States squad right now. “No disrespect to them, they’re a hell of a team,” Australia’s Joe Ingles said. “Obviously the guys they’ve got on their roster and Pop standing up there is always nice to see, but we came in here expecting to win the game and that’s what we did.”
Basketball has always been an international game, but the international players have never been as good as they are now with the a majority of the top 20 players in the NBA being from foreign lands. The Tokyo Games will probably have the most competitive basketball in international play we have ever seen. It is up to Durant and company to play better in order to not disappoint.
Simone Biles is unlike any other athlete on the planet, but something she does have in common with others is taking a lot of hate and criticism on social media. And it’s easy for some when they can hide behind their screens and say nasty things to the greatest gymnast of all time.
But her haters ended up fueling her to compete while wearing leotards with rhinestone goat heads on them.
In the latest episode of Simone vs Herself — a Facebook Watch docuseries highlighting Biles’ life and training up to and after the Tokyo Olympics this summer — she opens up about her critics.
In the final episode, titled What Can’t I Do?, to drop before the Games, she says:
“Lately, I haven’t been as active on social media, and I feel like I’m kind of getting to the point where I don’t share as much. But I’ve always been so open and honest with my fans, and I feel like it’s kind of punishing my fans for the haters, you know?
“But at the end of the day, it’s like, people are just so rude. They tweet me that they hope I fall on bars. They hope I mess up the entire meet. I’m not as good [as] I was in 2016.
“They were just saying the most outrageous things. They don’t care. They probably think you’re not gonna see it or you don’t care or they don’t think we’re human like them.”
Simone vs Herself director Gotham Chopra recently told For The Win that while examining Biles’ greatness, a huge focus of the docuseries was to highlight the raw, human side of her as well.
In the latest episode, Biles acknowledges she worries about the criticism that may come if she messes up, and she discusses the pressures that come with doing challenging and dangerous moves, like the Yurchenko double pike on vault, where she says a mistake could end with a broken ankle or snapped shin.
(Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
And Biles explains what led to her wearing her GOAT leotards while training and competing. She says:
“We wore the GOAT [leotard] just to kind of I wouldn’t say to piss people off but mess with them because there were a lot of people that say, ‘Hey, Simone, you’re the GOAT.’ But then if I acknowledge it, then I’m cocky.
“Everybody can call you the GOAT, but then if you acknowledge it once, they’re like, ‘Oh my god, I hate her! She’s not that awesome!’ I don’t think it’s fair that you can stand behind the computer and talk all that smack, and I just take it as an athlete. So it was kind of just to push back, and then it just pissed them off, so in the end, we won. People loved it, they hated it, I loved it.”
Whether or not Biles will wear a GOAT leotard at the Tokyo Olympics remains to be seen, but no matter what, she’s undeniably the greatest of all time.
The lineup for Summer Olympics this year in Tokyo is going to look a bit different compared with the Rio Games in 2016. Several new sports have been added and a couple are returning, and some existing sports have had new events added.
For the Tokyo Olympics, athletes will compete in 41 sports with 339 medal events, an increase this year thanks to the new events.
After a brief hiatus, baseball and softball are returning for the Tokyo Olympics, and surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing and freestyle BMX have been added to the mix.
Additionally, basketball is expanding with 3-on-3 matchups, and karate has been added to this year’s Games.
Here are a few more details about the new sports added to the Tokyo Olympics lineup…
Team USA has a chance to redeem itself against Australia after losing to Nigeria on Saturday.
The basketball world was stunned when Nigeria defeated Team USA on Saturday, 90-87. Although it was only an exhibition, any sort of loss for America in basketball is concerning. A disappointed Gregg Popovich sounded off after the game, saying he was actually glad this happened:
“With four days of practice there were a lot of things I liked out there. But, in a way I’m kind of glad it happened. That loss means nothing if we don’t learn from it. But, it can be the most important thing in this tournament for us. To learn lessons from this and see what we did to move on. We’ll figure it out.”
Team USA will tip off again on Monday versus Australia. The Aussies are fresh off of a 87-84 win over Argentina in their first exhibition game, courtesy of a Patty Mills game-winning 3 at the buzzer. This will be the United States’ chance to redeem itself following the defeat.
Team USA suffered a shocking loss to Nigeria in an exhibition game on Saturday. Should Americans be worried ahead of the Olympics?
The United States men’s basketball team played its first exhibition game against Nigeria on Saturday — and Team USA suffered a shocking upset. It went down to the wire, but Nigeria stood tall, winning 90-87. Nigeria was led by Gabe Vincent, who had a game-high 21 points. For Team USA, Nets star Kevin Durant led the way with 17 points and 5 rebounds. Celtics star Jayson Tatum scored 15 points.
The United States is set to play France in its first official game for the Olympics on July 25. The European powerhouse is bound to cause all sorts of problems for Team USA, posing a far more serious challenge than Nigeria. With that said, should the U.S be concerned about heading to Tokyo following this loss?
Team USA head coach Gregg Popovich chose to start Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal, Tatum, Durant and Bam Adebayo against Nigeria. Lillard and Adebayo finished with a plus-minus of minus-11. Durant was not too far off with a plus-minus of minus-10. Beal and Tatum were the only starters with a positive plus-minus.
If these are the five starters moving forward, they should get used to this pressure. The close games will come down to these five. Yes, there should be concerns about their performance against Nigeria due to their standards. However, this is nothing to be concerned about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fu6Kf_DfIU
Saturday’s exhibition did not come close to the intensity of an Olympic game. It looked more like an experiment for the Team USA coaches to test different rotations. More importantly, the squad is still without Devin Booker, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday.
When this team is at full strength and they’re playing with a high intensity, it will be a different outcome — especially on the offensive end. Eighty-seven points is not typical of any Team USA roster. It’s only a matter of time until we see America at full strength. No need to overreact.
There are seven Celtics alumni planning to play in the Tokyo Olympics.
By now you would have to be the most casual of Boston Celtics fans to just be learning that All-Star forward Jayson Tatum will be participating in the Tokyo Olympics at the end of July to try and help Team USA take home the Gold. But, you’d be forgiven if you couldn’t name other Celtics past and present competing in the games.
And while sitting Boston players suiting up for Team USA are something of a rarity in the Olympics — the last one since Tatum was Larry Bird, to put it in context — when you count Celtics alumni, there’s quite a cadre in just this Olympic Games alone.
To get you up to speed on the current cohort of contemporary and historical Celtics in the Tokyo Olympics, we put together a list, in order by when the start of their tenure with the team began.
The Israeli floor general is the youngest winner of the Israeli Premier Basketball League’s Most Improved Player award in its history. https://t.co/5XIVCFkC6G
Kevin Durant explains how Team USA wants to honor the teachings of Kobe Bryant in Tokyo.
It’s been over a year since Kobe Bryant passed away in a helicopter crash. He may be gone, but his impact on the game will be felt for generations.
Some players on this year’s Tokyo Olympics U.S. squad had deep relationships with Bryant. Those who didn’t surely took some inspiration from the Black Mamba. Nets forward Kevin Durant has made it clear Team USA hopes to honor Bryant’s legacy in Tokyo.
“Kobe Bryant is the guy that all of us looked up to and watched as kids. And even when he was alive and playing, his DNA was embedded in us as players. From afar, (he) taught us what the game is about, what work ethic is about. … Now that he’s not with us no more, we all want to honor his teachings by going out there and playing with that passion, with that energy every single play.
And guys that had close relationships understand how he approached every single day, especially with Team USA. He really took pride in being a part of this group and part of this team. We all feed off of that type of energy, and Kobe always brought that, so he’s always big to everyone of us here. We miss him; we miss him dearly.”
— The 3 Point Conversion (@3ptCnvrsn) July 9, 2021
When Bryant played for Team USA, he went 36-0 en route to two gold medals. If America wins a gold medal this year, it will honor him. Making it his third gold medal in spirit.
