Now's around the time of the year when the league's top young American players get invitations to participate in Team USA Basketball's select team minicamp in Las Vegas in July. This is essentially the program's way of cultivating a reserve pool of potential team participants while trying to pick out ones that could be ticketed for the team in the future.
Twenty-four players will be a part of that group, and John Wall and Bradley Beal will be two of them. Marc Spears of Yahoo! Sports reports Wall will be one of seven point guards selected, a list that includes Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard, Ty Lawson, Mike Conley, Kemba Walker and George Hill. Meanwhile, Michael Lee of the Washington Post reports that Beal has also received an invitation.
The quality of players selected can range from legitimate national-team options to practice filler. It remains to be seen where Wall and Beal fall on that spectrum, but it's a good sign that they've been invited.
A roundup of some of the other players reportedly in the mix can be found here on SBNation.com.