DeMarcus Cousins sat out of Team USA’s win over Brazil on Saturday, after leaving practice earlier in the week with a knee injury.
Cousins said pretty quickly that he would be fine, and an MRI confirmed that there was no structural damage.
He felt immediate improvement in the knee the very next day, and things seem to be progressing to the point where he’s already declaring that he;ll be ready to go in time for USA Basketball’s next exhibition game, which will take place in New York next week.
From Sean Cunningham of News10.net:
If he can return that quickly, then this is good news for Cousins and his chances of making the final 12-man roster -- although nothing is guaranteed.
Mike Krzyzewski opted to go with smaller lineups in the exhibition against Brazil, starting Kenneth Faried alongside Derrick Rose, James Harden, Stephen Curry and Anthony Davis, while choosing to let Andre Drummond, Gordon Hayward and DeMar DeRozan all sit at the end of the bench without playing at all.
The speed and athleticism destroyed Brazil in stretches, and they have above average big men in Nene and Anderson Varejao who theoretically could have warranted playing more of the team’s bigs.
Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports reports that Jerry Colangelo may choose to bring 13 players to Spain, and make the final roster cut the day prior to the start of the FIBA World Cup on August 30. That would seem like an unnecessarily cruel way to conduct business, but if that’s how things end up playing out, it’s better for Cousins to return as soon as possible to try to build his case.