USA Basketball announced on Friday the addition of USA Select Team guard Keldon Johnson (San Antonio Spurs) and NBA veteran center JaVale McGee (Denver Nuggets) to the 2020 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball roster. Johnson and McGee fill openings created after Bradley Beal went into health and safety protocol and following Kevin Love’s announcement Friday morning that he was withdrawing from the team due to his ongoing calf recovery.
The pair join previously announced U.S. Olympic Team 2020 members: Bam Adebayo (Miami Heat), Devin Booker (Phoenix Suns), Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets), Jerami Grant (Detroit Pistons), Draymond Green (Golden State Warriors), Jrue Holiday (Milwaukee Bucks), Zach LaVine (Chicago Bulls), Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers), Khris Middleton (Milwaukee Bucks) and Jayson Tatum (Boston Celtics).
Because of their current involvement in the 2021 NBA Finals, Booker, Holiday, and Middleton will join the USA squad after completion of the Finals.
The USA coaching staff is led by head coach Gregg Popovich (San Antonio Spurs) with assistant coaches Steve Kerr (Golden State Warriors), Lloyd Pierce, and Jay Wright (Villanova University).
Johnson, a 6-foot-5 guard, attended the national team’s Las Vegas training camp as a member of the USA Select Team and was added to the USA roster for the team’s exhibition games. He has seen action in two of the USA’s three exhibition games in Las Vegas, averaging 5.5 points and 2.5 rebounds per game. Having completed his second season with the Spurs in 2020-21, he started 67 of the 69 games he played in and averaged 12.8 points and 6.0 rebounds per game.
A 7-foot center, McGee completed in 2020-21 his 13th NBA regular season. Playing 33 games in 2020-21 for the Cleveland Cavaliers and 13 games for the Denver Nuggets, McGee averaged 7.3 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 1.2 blocked shots per game.
The rescheduled Summer Olympic Games are being held July 23-Aug. 8 in Tokyo, Japan. Twelve nations will compete in the Olympic men’s basketball competition that will be held at the Saitama Super Arena. In addition, to host Japan, nations qualified for the Tokyo Olympics men’s basketball competition include Argentina, Australia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Nigeria, Slovenia, Spain, and the United States.
The American men will open the Olympic preliminary round play on July 25 against France (8 a.m. EDT), then will play Iran on July 28 (12:40 a.m. EDT) and will close out preliminary play on July 31 (8:00 a.m. EDT) versus the Czech Republic.
