Team USA Basketball is working to replace Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal before traveling to Japan for the Summer Olympics, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Beal was placed in health and safety protocols for COVID-19 on Wednesday. Team USA announced on Thursday Beal will not participate in the Olympics with the team.
Beal started each of the Team USA’s first three exhibition games. He averaged 10.3 points in the contests in which USA went 1-2 with losses against Nigeria and Australia.
Team USA has two more exhibition games before leaving Las Vegas for Japan. Their first Olympics game is slated for July 25 against France.
They are already down three players — Milwaukee Bucks’ Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton and Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker. All three are playing in the NBA Finals which is now tied 2-2 between the Bucks and Suns. They’re expected to join Team USA when the Finals are completed which won’t finish until the earliest of July 20.
Beal became the first Washington Wizards player named to Team USA since the NBA’s inclusion in 1992. The 28-year old is coming off a career-year in which he finished second in the league in scoring with 31.3 points per game. He was an All-Star Game starter for the first time in his career and was named third-team All-NBA.
He was looking forward to representing his country in the Olympics. Unfortunately, those aspirations are now over due to COVID-19.
