Gilbert Arenas: I predicted USA would not win Gold in 2006
Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas once again told the story of how he ended up not being on the 2006 Team USA roster for the FIBA World Cup in Japan.
The guard, who was a two-time NBA All-Star at the time, was confident that he deserved to be in the final squad of the national team. However, a groin injury prevented from playing.
Arenas said that after getting injured he went to Jerry Colangelo to tell him that he does not want to take a spot of some other player. Agent Zero was shocked when the executive replied by saying that there’s no need to worry because Arenas is on the bubble. The player took this very personally and left the training camp immediately.
He revealed how he predicted that Team USA would not win Gold at the World Cup because of how the roster was structured. “You can ask Dave McMenamin – when we did the blog, I said USA Basketball would not win the gold, they’re gonna lose because they have all of the shooters coming off the bench and they have all the drivers in the starting lineup and it’s a clash.”
And indeed the Americans lost in the semi-final against Greece and had to settle for Bronze after defeating Argentina.
“I woke up probably right before he printed it,” Arenas continued. “I said. Just erase it, I don’t want to be the guy that wishes down on our American team and boom boom boom. He takes it out and then I get a call a couple of hours later – they lost. I was like ‘Oh, we’re never gonna say that.’”
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