LaMarcus Aldridge will reportedly not play for the United States men’s basketball team in the 2016 Summer Olympics due to a hand injury.
The United States men’s basketball team has suffered a few hits as of late. First, Steph Curry announced that he won’t be playing in the Olympics because he wants to focus on getting healthy for the 2016-17 NBA season. Now Team USA will reportedly be without San Antonio Spurs forward/center LaMarcus Aldridge, who wants to focus on recovering from a hand injury.
At the end of the day, Aldridge is probably making the right decision. While playing for your country is an incredible honor, staying healthy is the number one concern for most players. Aldridge admirably played through the hand injury, but he shouldn’t be risking it to play for his country. The Spurs are probably very happy that Aldridge won’t be risking further damage to his hand as well.
Even without Curry and Aldridge, who was a bit of a longshot to make the team anyway, the United States has to be considered the favorites to win the gold medal in the 2016 Olympics. They can easily go with any number of point guard’s to replace Curry and there are a number of big men who bring similar skill sets to the table as Aldridge does.
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Aldridge averaged 18 points per game during the regular season with a career best 51.3 percent field goal percentage. He also averaged 8.5 rebounds per game in his first season with the Spurs despite playing just over 30 minutes per game.
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