Brooklyn’s Mason Plumlee did not expect to be in Spain right now with Team USA. He was invited to the Las Vegas training camp as part of the USA Select team — the group of young players that the big guns go against. Basically young sparring partners.
But he impressed and more importantly he fit as a role player — other players described his style as “easy to play with.” DeMarcus Cousins and Andre Drummond are more athletic and talented (and they are playing more) but Plumlee just kept making the right plays and providing needed size. Mike Krzyzewski had Plumlee for four years at Duke and told PBT he was surprised by his level of play.
In the end Plumlee made the 12-man roster while guys like Kyle Korver and Damian Lillard did not. Team USA went with four centers on the roster.
That led to conspiracy theories in some corners of the Internet. One, that he went to Duke and that’s why he (and Kyrie Irving) made the roster over Lillard. Second, Nike has a lot of influence over Team USA and Plumlee is a Nike guy while Lillard is an Adidas star.
A journalist in Spain asked Plumlee about those questions and he politely shot them down reports Ball in Europe (via Eye on Basketball):
“I’m very proud that I went to Duke and I’m very proud that I wear Nike, and that has nothing to do with it,” Plumlee said, via Ball in Europe. “If you were at our practices and our training camp, anybody that was there, they would see why I made the team.”
My problem with conspiracy theories are that in some corners of the Internet people find a conspiracy in the Pope always being Catholic. The Web can be a place where logic and reason don’t always find a foothold. But the whispers about Plumlee and played into long-running conspiracies that existed already — and I agree Nike has had real influence with Team USA over the years.
The problem here is that Plumlee fits. He’s a legitimate choice. He’s the guy at the end of the bench — he’s played just 16 minutes through two games — but he has a place. When it came time to assemble the roster Coach K had his rotation bigs set (Cousins is getting good run off the bench) but he was looking for specialists to round out the roster. Looking ahead to teams like Lithuania and Spain with NBA-caliber front lines that stand in the USA’s path, Coach K opted for size. There’s a real logic to that. It fits.
But logic and conspiracy theories rarely go hand-in-hand. So put on your tinfoil hat and think what you want of Plumlee. He doesn’t care, he’s in Spain and wearing the uniform.
