{"id":81496,"date":"2024-06-15T10:02:43","date_gmt":"2024-06-15T14:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=81496"},"modified":"2024-06-15T10:02:43","modified_gmt":"2024-06-15T14:02:43","slug":"paris-olympics-team-usa-considering-adding-third-celtics-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/15\/paris-olympics-team-usa-considering-adding-third-celtics-player\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris Olympics: Team USA Considering Adding Third Celtics Player"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Boston Celtics guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/whitede01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Derrick White<\/a> is getting Team USA consideration ahead of the Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on NBA Countdown before Game 4, ESPN insider Adrian Wojnarowski says that White \u201clooms as a real potential candidate for Team USA in the Summer Olympics if Kawhi Leonard is unable to successfully rehab back from that knee inflammation that kept him out of the backend of the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Woj: Derrick White could be a Team USA replacement player if Kawhi is unhealthy | NBA Countdown\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6dtXln9BoZc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>White is playing the best basketball of his career right now, effecting winning at a high-level.<\/p>\n<p>Taking what the defense gives him, he scores efficiently. Making the right \u2014and at times just simple \u2014pass, he\u2019s been a sound playmaker. He\u2019s among the best better perimeter defenders and has a knack for blocking shots. On the season, he\u2019s averaging 15.2 points, 5.2 assists, 1.0 steals, 1.2 blocks and 1.5 turnovers per game. He\u2019s shooting 46.1 percent from the field, 39.6 percent from 3, and 90.1 percent from 3.<\/p>\n<h2>Team USA Considering Adding Third Celtics Player for Paris Olympics<\/h2>\n<p>At the end of the day, if USA Basketball wants to replace Leonard with White, it\u2019s not a bad decision.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, in their bid for Leonard, one assumes that they were looking for a player with more size and positional versatility. To that point, White\u2019s block average may be particularly impressive given his height, but he doesn\u2019t play much bigger than his size. For reference, White is 6-foot-4 and 190 pounds. Meanwhile, Leonard is 6-foot-7 and 225 pounds, capable of guarding 1-4. If the goal is to replace him specifically, they should be looking at White\u2019s teammate.<\/p>\n<h3>Jaylen Brown Snubbed Again<\/h3>\n<p>Team USA snubbed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brownja02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jaylen Brown<\/a> from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/17\/usa-basketball-announces-star-studded-team-for-olympics\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">their initial roster<\/a>, selecting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bookede01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devin Booker<\/a> over him. Booker is an excellent scorer but far from a reliable defender. Meanwhile, Brown is among the top-way players in the league. That said, USA Basketball leaving him off the roster again \u2014and saying it\u2019s so that White can replace Leonard no less\u2014is a poor decision.<\/p>\n<p>Homing in on Brown\u2019s defensive versatility, he\u2019s an elite defender who can guard 1-4, like Leonard. Not only is he 6-foot-6 and 223 pounds, strong and explosive, but he\u2019s technically sound. Yet, it goes far beyond that.<\/p>\n<p>To start, Brown was recently named the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/28\/celtics-jaylen-brown-honored-eastern-conference-finals-mvp\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">2024 Eastern Conference Finals MVP<\/a> and is the favorite to win the 2024 NBA Finals MVP. In a \u2018what have you done for me lately\u2019 league, there\u2019s little logic bypassing Brown for one of his teammates. In the playoffs, when the pressure is on and cream rises to the top, Brown has been their best player. He has one main weakness on offense, which is that he can be streaky from outside. Over the past three seasons, he\u2019s shot 34.8 percent from 3. In the five seasons prior to that, he made 37.8 percent of his 3s.<\/p>\n<p>With that said, if USA Basketball wanted someone who could thrive off-ball, White could be the better option. That would be the only reason his being picked over Brown would make sense, though it would be to ignore that White had a career 3-point percentage of .344 prior to last season.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, there is the possibility that one of Team USA\u2019s top scorers goes down. In that event, having Brown available is undeniably more beneficial than White. For everything White is, he is not yet a reliable go-to scorer. The Celtics aren\u2019t consistently asking him to carry them across the finish line with volume scoring. They do ask that of Brown though.<\/p>\n<p>That said, just imagine if White was picking up the slack for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a> offensively? Would he have as much success as Brown would off-the-dribble, in the midrange, or around the rim? To that point, 3-pointers aren\u2019t the be all the end all for the vast majority of the NBA\u2019s No. 1 options, especially if their opponent schemes to limit those attempts.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, there are a few reasons to select White as Leonard\u2019s injury replacement, but Brown checks off more boxes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boston Celtics guard Derrick White is getting Team USA consideration ahead of the Paris Olympics. Speaking on NBA Countdown before Game 4, ESPN insider Adrian Wojnarowski says that White \u201clooms as a real potential candidate for Team USA in the Summer Olympics if Kawhi Leonard is unable to successfully rehab back from that knee inflammation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":81506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1608,62,3,60],"tags":[1090,450,168,1052,2081],"class_list":["post-81496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celtics","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-olympics","tag-derrick-white","tag-jaylen-brown","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-olympics","tag-team-usa"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}