Andre Drummond and the rest of the 19-man USA Basketball roster begins training today in Las Vegas. Over the weekend, Brian Packey described how Drummond's chances to make the final 12-man roster that travels to Spain for the FIBA World Cup improved after Blake Griffin and Kevin Love bowed out. USA Basketball went small to replace Griffin, adding point guard John Wall, but they went big to replace Love, with power forward Paul Millsap getting the nod yesterday.
“Paul has prior experience at the National Team level having participated in the 2009 National Team mini-camp and offers us veteran inside player who possesses attributes that can be beneficial for us,” said USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo.
Even though Millsap is a big man, I still believe Drummond's main competition is DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis, the only other players listed at center on the roster. From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Regardless whether Drummond makes the final cut, at least we know what he'll look like in this year's new Team USA uniform:Colangelo is looking forward to watching Davis, DeMarcus Cousins and Andre Drummond establish their credentials right away.
“We’re looking for someone to wow us,” Colangelo said. “It’s a great opportunity for the bigs.”
Before attending to his USA Basketball duties, Drummond also participated in Jordan Brand's "First to Fly" event that introduced the Air Jordan XX9, included a pretty awesome high school dunk contest -- and, for some reason, featured Drummond finishing an alley-oop from Shad Moss, who you may also know as the rapper (formerly?) known as Bow Wow:
Moss got the better of Drummond (and apparently took some of Dre's money) from long distance, though:
Just whooped @AndreDrummondd and his homeboy in a 3 pt contest for that bread! 100's will be cool haha
— Shad Moss (Mr 106) (@smoss) July 27, 2014
@AndreDrummondd i got that ray allen release! Tell van gundy im trying out haha i gotta burner bro! Haha
— Shad Moss (Mr 106) (@smoss) July 27, 2014