FIBA World Cup 2019: Bradley Beal withdraws from USA Basketball men’s national team training camp roster

On Monday, Candace Buckner of The Washington Post reported that Bradley Beal withdrew from consideration from the USA Basketball men’s national team’s training camp roster, citing the anticipated birth of his second child. Training camp was scheduled from Aug. 5-9 in Las Vegas.

First, this decision was definitely a sacrifice that we have to give Beal respect for. He’s as much of a family man as anyone I’ve seen in the NBA. Beal wasn’t a lock to make the World Cup, though I think he may have pulled through if he actually did attend camp.

Unfortunately, I also don’t think Beal will play for the USA anymore or be invited to future camps. This is because he turned down an invite to be on the Olympic team in 2016 and now he’s turning the possibility of playing the World Cup. Also the USA has many more players whom they can draw from the pool as they look to win their third consecutive gold medal.

The USA will play in Group E against Japan, the Czech Republic and Turkey.

We’ll still cover the World Cup. And yes, we’ll root for the USA, but ... there are no Wizards players on it. That’s normal life as Wizards fans, I guess.

Anyway, we’ll be all-in with Wizards rookie Rui Hachimura as he hopes to be the Japanese version of Emma Meesseman in the world championship.

Hey, if the Belgian women can surprise the world, why can’t the Japanese men? Just saying.