Because Of Injuries To NBA Players, USA Basketball Requested Extra Time To Name Its Team

Despite a rash of season-ending injuries to top National Basketball Association (NBA) players, US Olympic basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski said on Monday he believed he can bring a solid team to the London Games.

The US roster pool has lost injured guards Derrick Rose and Chauncey Billups and forwards Dwight Howard and LaMarcus Aldridge but the talent still available has Krzyzewski upbeat that he can repeat the gold medal success from Beijing.

Keep that in mind in regard to the upcoming roster shuffling. The American’s most formidable competition in London is expected to be Spain, its roster built on strength and size, the one place the U.S. team seems to lack the same kind of depth. With Westbrook, Chris Paul and Deron Williams already in the U.S. player pool, Colangelo and his staff do not have to add another point guard, necessarily, to replace Rose. They could choose to go big inside, or add another interchangeable player who can man multiple positions.

"We believe we can have a terrific team with the guys we have right now," Krzyzewski, who said this would be his last turn directing the national team, told a news conference at the US Olympic Committee’s media summit in Dallas. "We believe we can have a special team."

Krzyzewski and USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo feel the labor dispute between NBA team owners and players that led to the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season had complicated things for this Olympic go-round.

"This has been an unusual year in the NBA with injuries, with the shortened season, condensed season, extended season that has led to back-to-back-to-back games early on," Colangelo said. "Whether injuries were due from that condensed schedule we don’t know."

While such luminaries as LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook give a formidable look to the prospective US roster, the team applied for and was given a 19-day extension by the US Olympic Committee (USOC) on Monday for finalizing its 12-man Olympic roster.

The US team had already been allowed by the USOC to add NBA Sixth Man award winner James Harden and top US college player Anthony Davis of Kentucky, to its pool to bring the once 20-strong list back up to 18 finalists.

One is the N.B.A. season itself, which was condensed and shortened because of the lockout and could extend to June 26, past the original USA Basketball roster deadline. If, say, Miami met Oklahoma City in the finals, certain and potential Olympians such as James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Harden would play right up until the national team’s training camp. Bosh has already struggled with injuries in the playoffs and could miss the remainder of the Heat’s conference semifinal series against Indiana with a strained abdominal muscle. Others could decide it’s too much basketball in too short of time.

Beyond that, under Colangelo and Coach Mike Krzyzewski, the national team has built its roster on flexibility, shifting someone like James into the role of primary distributor and using someone like Carmelo Anthony at power forward instead of small. This allowed Team U.S.A. to play the kind of defense, intense and swarming, that won it the gold medal in Beijing in 2008.

Regardless, a difficult pool of potential opponents will be waiting for the Americans in London. Team U.S.A. drew Argentina, France and Tunisia in Group A, along with two teams that will be added from a last-chance tournament in July.

"I think this is the last time," he told reporters. "I hope we can win the gold medal."

USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said Monday he will continue in his role until the next Olympics to promote continuity.

Because of injuries to NBA players, USA Basketball requested extra time to name its team. The team now will be named on July 7. The previous deadline was June 18. James Harden and Anthony Davishave been added to the pool of players from which the team will be chosen.me to name its team

Congratulations To The Kentucky Basketball On Its Eighth National Championship

University of Kentucky head basketball coach John Calipari and the school's 2012 NCAA men's championship team presented President Barack Obama with a No. 1 jersey and a championship ring during a Friday ceremony in the White House East Room.
　　
Friday was a big day for University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari and his three assistants. Along with their trip to the White House to be honored by President Obama for winning this year’s NCAA championship, Calipari and his staff also got new, lucrative contracts.
　　
As the basketball world knows, Obama has made his NCAA basketball bracket choices for four years on ESPN. This year, he put Kentucky in his Final Four picks, but he didn't tap the Wildcats to win it all.
　　
Instead, the president liked North Carolina beating what he called "unbelievably talented" Kentucky in the championship game. But that didn't happen: UNC was knocked out by Kansas.
　　
On April 1, Kentucky defeated Kansas 67-59, winning the title — and really messing up the Obama bracket.
　　
"Congratulations to the Kentucky Wildcats on your eighth national championship," Obama said moments after he entered the East Room, the Wildcats and coach John Calipari on risers behind him and a raucuous crowd of Kentucky fans rocking the crystal chandeliers.
　　
The 2012 Wildcats team, which beat Kansas, 67-59, for the national title on April 2, boarded a plane for Washington at about noon for the 5 p.m. event. Obama called Calipari the day after the team's tournament win to offer congratulations, and said that he looked forward to meeting the team in person at the White House. They received the invitation on Tuesday, while Obama was on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan to sign a security agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
　　
The last-minute invitation caused a minor political dust-up: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican and one of the president's biggest adversaries in Congress, was invited to attend but declined. The reason: He'd planned to attend the festivities in the run-up to Saturday's Kentucky Derby, another storied state sports tradition. But the conflict appeared to be more a quirk of the calendar than anything else.
　　
The White House trip caps a whirlwind year for the players, some of whom were not old enough to vote in the last presidential election.
　　
But Obama took note of the young team's talents, saying he expected their success to continue. "Everybody's got to take a good look now, because a whole bunch of these guys are going on to the NBA," he said. "Who knows, one of them might end up here in Washington."
　　
Calipari’s new guaranteed compensation, which increased by $400,000 annually and does not include up to $850,000 in potential bonuses each season, would make him the fourth-highest paid coach in the NBA, according to a March story by Forbes. He would trail only the Celtics’ Doc Rivers ($7 million), the Spurs’ Greg Popovich ($6 million) and the Trail Blazers’ Nate McMillan ($5.5 million).
　　
It goes without saying, then, that Calipari is among the highest-paid coaches in all of college athletics, not just basketball, “and he should be,” UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart said. “My goodness, he’s done a great job of leading our program. He’s been a great ambassador for the university. He means a great deal to us.”
　　
Calipari, who had a 72-112 record as coach of the New Jersey Nets in the late 1990s, is often mentioned when NBA jobs open – most recently the New York Knicks. But Calipari, who has a 102-14 record with the Cats and hasn’t lost a home game in his three seasons in Lexington, has shot down such speculation by saying he has the best job in basketball and wants to finish his career at Kentucky. He has said he’d like to chase UCLA’s record 11 NCAA titles.
　　
Barnhart said he believes him and thinks his current contract, better than most NBA coaches get and with much more job security, will help ensure that. "What I've learned is that if I make the right picks, I look like a genius. But if things go the other way, then a team like Kentucky gets to come to my house and remind me, in person, that I was wrong."
　　
Obama admitted that he didn't pick Kentucky to win the championship in part because three of the five starters were freshmen. "But let's face it, sometimes, talent trumps experience," Obama said. Obama singled out freshman Anthony Davis, who's from the president's hometown of Chicago, and was named the Most Outstanding Player in the 2012 NCAA Tournament. Obama said he'd visited Davis' school as a U.S. senator in Illinois, and teased him about growing eight inches between his sophomore and senior years of high school.
　　
"In fact, he has grown an inch since he got to the White House," Obama said, joking. Obama also noted the accomplishments of Darius Miller, a senior and former Mr. Basketball from Mason County who won a state championship when he was in high school, and now an NCAA trophy. Only one other player, Louisville's Darrell Griffith, has been Kentucky's Mr. Basketball and won a state title and an NCAA championship.
　　
"I'm pretty sure Coach Cal is right that if Darius decides to run for governor he'll do all right in Kentucky," the president said.
　　
Obama gave Calipari credit, too.