Kevin Love has removed himself from Team USA.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski (who has blocked me on Twitter for some unknown reason), the Cleveland Cavaliers forward has removed himself from the team as he continues to try to improve a right calf injury. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
After spending 10 days in Las Vegas preparing for the Olympics, Cleveland’s Kevin Love is withdrawing from Team USA and won’t travel to Tokyo, sources tell ESPN. Love is still returning to full form from a right calf injury that kept him out a significant part of the NBA season.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 16, 2021
Team USA is working to replace two players for the 12-man roster now. Both Bradley Beal and Kevin Love won’t join the team in Tokyo this month. https://t.co/Ph6DfKZOIf
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 16, 2021
Agent Jeff Schwartz of @excelbasketball has confirmed news to ESPN and shared statement from Love: “I am incredibly disappointed to not be heading to Tokyo with Team USA, but you need to be at absolute peak performance to compete at the Olympic level and I am just not there yet.” https://t.co/Ph6DfKZOIf
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 16, 2021
How pumped is Jalen Rose right now? Remember, Rose went mega-viral for his moronic comments about Love being the only white player on the team because of “tokenism.”
Well, it looks like Rose might get his wish for an all-white team with Love deciding to not play in Tokyo.
Not that it should matter what race the players are, but I have no doubt Rose will at the very least privately smile about the fact Love is staying home.
Despite being excited for Olympic hoops, @JalenRose is disappointed in Team USA’s token selection of Kevin Love. pic.twitter.com/VgKUeRicAB
— Jalen & Jacoby (@JalenandJacoby) June 24, 2021
At the end of the day, all that matters is that Love gets healthy and we go to Tokyo and win the gold medal. The first is almost certainly guaranteed to happen.
Winning gold is a whole different story given how bad we looked against Nigeria and Australia.
Popovich has an exchange with a reporter postgame Team USA loss to Australia #nba #gospursgo #teamusa pic.twitter.com/sedy3N45ra
— JeffGSpursZone (@JeffGSpursZone) July 13, 2021
Best of luck to Love as he does his best to get healthy, and let’s all hope like hell we don’t get embarrassed in Tokyo.