Aaron Gordon deserves spot on Team USA’s training camp roster

Aaron Gordon has taken plenty of slights this summer. The biggest one might be getting left off Team USA’s World Cup roster. He deserves his chance.

Aaron Gordon feels slighted.

He has let the whole world know about this, feeling frustrated that his teammate Terrence Ross was passed over as a finalist for Sixth Man of the Year and then his coach Steve Clifford was passed over as a finalist for Coach of the Year. He became even more incredulous when neither he nor any of his teammates received a vote for the All-Defensive Teams.

That should give Aaron Gordon plenty of motivation to build off his best all-around season in his five-year career. He was a better playmaker, a better shot-maker and a better defender than he had been at any time in his career.

No matter where anyone stands on what Gordon’s ultimate potential might be, he is just scratching the surface on what he can be at just 23 years old. He is going to get a lot better.

Now with his first playoff appearance under his belt, he is sure to get more notice nationally. But that notice should come earlier. It should come this summer.

Gordon deserves at least a tryout for Team USA this summer before the FIBA World Cup in August.

But, like with the award snubs, it is starting to look more and more like Gordon will get passed over.

Team USA will gather in Las Vegas in early August for their training camp. They are expected to bring a roster pool of 18 players to try out for the team that they will trim before playing in exhibition games and then again before they head to China for the World Cup.

They, along with the Select Team, a group of young players they train against (which should include Jonathan Isaac, but that seems uncertain), serve as a good measure of which players are making their mark around the league and who Team USA is keeping their eye on.

Last weekend, Marc Stein of The New York Times reported Anthony Davis, Kemba Walker, James Harden and Donovan Mitchell will be on the 18-man training camp roster.

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com added many more names expected to be invited to the camp: Bradley Beal, Eric Gordon, Kyle Kuzma, Damian Lillard, Brook Lopez, Kevin Love, CJ McCollum and Jayson Tatum. Khris Middleton, LaMarcus Aldridge and Andre Drummond are also expected to be on the invite list.

He added the team is expected to invite Paul Millsap and P.J. Tucker to the camp too to add a veteran defensive presence to the team.

That is 17 of the 18 players expected to be invited to the camp. Only one spot is currently unaccounted for.

Team USA is always full of its share of All-Stars. And most of the players on the known invite list are pretty deserving. The team likes to take the very best the league has to offer.

But starting under coach Mike Krzyzewski, Team USA always carried some sort of specialist, whether it was Kenneth Faried at the 2014 World Cup, Andre Iguodala at the 2012 Olympics and 2010 World Championships or Tayshaun Prince on the 2008 Redeem Team at the Olympics.

It seems like Gregg Popovich will likely go the same route in including players like Millsap and Tucker on the 18-man roster.

But even looking at them and the other young players on the roster, it is hard to explain why Gordon should not get consideration.

He has been a part of the Team USA program for a long time and has grown and improved his game to the point where he would be a reliable 3-point shooter at the FIBA level.

He was the tournament MVP in leading Team USA to the U19 Championship in 2013 along with Jahlil Okafor, Marcus Smart and Justise Winslow. That was a formative moment for him and helped him gain the confidence to become the eventual fourth overall pick.

Gordon joined the Select Team and worked out with the national team before the 2016 Olympics. That was the last time there was a major basketball competition — FIBA moved the World Cup to a year before the Olympics so they would not compete with the FIFA World Cup.

Gordon has put in his time with Team USA. And he has progressively gotten better. And Team USA has long preferred players commit their summers to the mini-camps and training caps to play in the World Cup and Olympics.

Gordon has done that and proven himself worthy of consideration because of the role he can fill for the team.

Coming off a career season where Gordon averaged 16.0 points per game, 7.4 rebounds per game and 3.7 assists per game while shooting a career-best 34.9 percent from beyond the arc, he seems like the perfect kind of versatile player to fill into this defensive role.

Clifford, the architect of the Orlando Magic’s eighth-ranked defense this year, probably trusted no one on the roster more than Gordon. Gordon led the team in minutes per game and almost always guarded the opponent’s best player.

At this point, the only thing keeping Gordon off the All-Defense team ballot is that the Magic were not on TV at all and the media did not see him. The coaches and basketball staffs certainly should have. And it seems silly that he is not included among the young players they could include as a defensive specialist.

Orlando Magic

If Draymond Green, who had a nice run with Team USA himself in the 2016 Olympics, is not going to be in the roster pool, Aaron Gordon is at least a good “discount version” who can do a lot of the same things. Especially if that is all he has to focus on within his role for Team USA.

Gordon had the goal this year of making the All-Defense team. It was something he repeated after the season that his immediate goals is to be on the All-Defense team.

That approach is certainly something Team USA needs with so many players used to being ball-dominant scorers.

Team USA always needs role players with so many players who are used to being the stars of their team. Gordon can certainly do more, but what made this season impressive was how committed he was to his role as a facilitator and defender. If anything, the Magic were begging him to be more aggressive when the playoffs came around.

Gordon is a good enough shooter that he will keep players honest. He was a better 3-point shooter this year than Kuzma, who is expected to be on the Team USA training camp roster, this past year. And Gordon is certainly a better defender than Kuzma.

Gordon obviously has some agency here too. It is not clear whether this is the final list — the full training camp invite list goes out next week. And there is probably some negotiation with third parties about who ultimately gets an invite to the training camp.

Gordon very well could have turned down the invitation to focus on his own game late in the summer.

But it is hard to argue Gordon does not deserve some consideration for Team USA. Considering the other players invited, it is hard not to suggest Gordon would be a welcome addition to the player pool and someone who could help the team out in China this summer.

Or he could take this as another slight.

If these are the players Team USA plans to take with them to China, Gordon certainly has an argument as a long-standing member of the Team USA program to get at least a tryout.