Aaron Gordon named to U.S. National Select Team

Aaron Gordon will be heading to Las Vegas in July to participate in the U.S. National Team’s preparations for the Olympics in Rio.

Aaron Gordon has been named to the U.S. Basketball National Select Team, the team filled with young players who will train with the national team before the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Gordon will train with the U.S. team heading to the Olympics from July 18-21 in Las Vegas, under the direction of future U.S. Men’s Basketball coach and current San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. This is a stepping stone in the U.S. national team program to potentially making the national team one day.

Victor Oladipo and Tobias Harris worked with the select team two years ago ahead of the FIBA World Cup and participated in the U.S. team’s player pool and tryouts for the Olympics this summer. Oladipo is currently considering whether to play for Nigeria in the Olympics or remain in the U.S. player pool.

For Gordon though, this will be his first interaction with the U.S. basketball program since helping the U19 team win a gold medal before his freshman year of college. Gordon was one of the top players on a team that included Elfrid Payton, Marcus Smart, Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow.

Just three years later, Gordon is now one of the most promising players on the Magic’s roster, going from an extremely raw athlete into something still very raw but much more polished, particularly on the defensive end. In training with the U.S. team, they will likely want to use his defense to challenge the players heading to Rio on the defensive end.

Of course, Gordon is expected to make lots of improvements on both ends of the ball this year. He entered July’s Summer League last year looking like a completely different player than his start-and-stop rookie year, displaying a more confident 3-point shot and jumper. He was clearly the best player at the Orlando Summer League.

An offseason jaw injury though knocked him out for most of the summer and kept him from participating in contact drills at the beginning of the year. It took him some time to get a lot of that improvement back.

He did eventually find himself in the starting lineup and a key member of the team. He averaged 9.2 points per game and 6.5 rebounds per game in 23.9 minutes per game last season. He shot just 29.6 percent from beyond the arc though and largely stayed closer to the basket on offense, cutting and driving or scoring in transition.

Orlando will need him to take a step up.

Being surrounded by the best players in the NBA, not to mention being coached by Gregg Popovich even for a few days will almost certainly help him.

“The 2016 USA Basketball Select Team continues to our tradition of featuring some of the game’s brightest and most promising young players,” said USA Basketball National Team Managing Director Jerry Colangelo in a press release. “Participation in this camp provides them with valuable experience at the USA Basketball National Team level, while helping prepare the 2016 USA National Team for its upcoming international competition. For many of the Select Team players, this is a continuation of their USA Basketball experiences and for others it is an introduction into our pipeline.”

There are a lot of very young players on the Select Team including fellow dunk contest participant Zach LaVine, draft prospect Brandon Ingram and one of the most improved players from last year in C.J. McCollum.

Next: Orlando Magic Daily Mailbag: Draft time

Gordon is in good company this July when he heads to Las Vegas.