Bam Adebayo was cut from Team USA during the summer of 2019. He’s still not over it
Bam Adebayo still isn’t quite over getting cut from Team USA.
The Miami Heat star quote tweeted a video from the camp on Wednesday, the footage of which shows him getting buckets on Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics.
Adebayo failed to make the U.S. national team that competed in the Federal International Basketball Association World Cup prior to the 2019-20 season. Team USA head coach Gregg Popovich passed over the then 22-year-old in favor of Brook Lopez, Mason Plumlee and Myles Turner because he “wasn’t ready.” However, both Brown and Tatum also made the team.
“From what I see, [Adebayo is] a different player now than he was when we had all the tryouts. I think that in general when I said he wasn’t quite ready, I think he didn’t show what he could really do,” Popovich told the Miami Herald in January. “I think that was just maybe a product of the guys that he was around. He was in a different environment. He probably deferred more than he needed to, he probably was a little unsure of himself — that kind of thing. And in that sense if that same tryout was today, I think he’d look a lot differently at it.”
Adebayo, undoubtedly motivated by the snub, was in the midst of a career year prior to the season being suspended indefinitely. As one of four players with averages of at least 15 points, 10 rebounds and five assists, he earned his first Al-Star selection in February.
Looking back, it’s safe to say Popovich and Team USA made a mistake. The Lopez-Plumlee-Turner trio ultimately didn’t do much (other than make Rudy Gobert look like the second coming of Wilt Chamberlain) as the squad failed to medal for the first time since 2002. Adebayo, meanwhile, has become a franchise cornerstone who should be terrorizing teams for years to come.
