Blake Griffin sidelined from London Olympics with knee injury, Anthony Davis to take his place – NBA News
As had been reported earlier, Blake Griffin suffered a knee injury while practising with the U.S team in Las Vegas on Thursday. And the word is now official that Griffin will not make it to the U.S Olympic team that will travel
to London later this month.
The loss of Griffin will be another setback for the U.S team, who are already playing in the absence of star players such as Dwight Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and Derrick Rose. The loss of Griffin make the
U.S front court roster thinner, and their success will now depend on the ability of Tyson Chandler to play extra minutes at centre, and on the ability of small forwards such as LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony to play at the 4 position.
The place left absent by Griffin on the team needs to be filled and the U.S team had directed this year’s number 1 draft pick Anthony Davis to report to duty in Las Vegas, confirming that he would take Griffin’s place.
On Friday morning, after Griffin officially withdrew his name from the U.S team, Davis was formally added to the roster as the 12th man.
“Blake is one of the best players in the league. Anthony Davis at some time is going to be one of the best players in the league, but Blake is a proven commodity. And if we don’t have him that’s a big loss. He was playing really
well for us,” said team USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Davis played the exhibition match against the Dominican Republic, but only took the floor when the US team had built up a 40 point lead. He finished with 8 minutes and played good solid basketball. Still, due to his inexperience,
coach Krzyzewski is going to go with the more veteran players for the most part of the game.
“Davis is not a key person. He played eight minutes tonight and was really good. But for us to be staying with Argentina and Brazil (two of the taller teams in the Olympics) it’s going to be these guys (pointing to Andre Iguodala),”
said the coach.
After Griffin was sidelined, there were some reports that DeMarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings would be included in the team. Cousins was a part of the select team that scrimmaged with the US team during training camp, and
made a good impression on the coaching staff. He is also a more dominant player in the lower post than Davis due to his size and strength advantage.
However, Cousins was not on the preliminary US roster, making it near to impossible to include him in the final 12 for the team.
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