Jeff Green not invited to Team USA mini-camp

Jeff Green has reportedly not been invited to participate in USA Basketball's mini-camp.

Green did play for Team USA in 2010, but was cut before the World Championship.

While Green did have a good year for the Celtics and was very productive in the playoffs, this seems to simply be a case of odd-man-out. The mini-camp is where the young, up-and-coming stars compete on the Select Team for a chance to make the final team roster that plays for world championships and in the Olympics. Again, this isn't an invite to play in the Olympics, just to play for the team that competes to get on the team that plays for the Olympics. It's tryouts.

Players like Kyrie Irving, John Wall, Damian Lillard, Larry Sanders, Klay Thompson and Harrison Barnes have already been invited to participate and Paul George and George Hill are expected to get their invites once the playoffs are over.

It would have been a nice nod to Green's bounce back year after heart surgery to give him an invite, but a nod is all it would have been.

There are simply too many great small forwards from the US in the NBA today for Green to make the squad. LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony aside, Green would have to bypass players like Rudy Gay and Josh Smith just to be considered for the roster.

It's telling that most of those getting invites are guards, as the availability of past Olympic players like Kobe Bryant, Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose is in question due to injuries. USA Coach Mike Krzyzewski also tends to lean on a guard-heavy roster anyway. Now if the Select Team was made up of lots of forwards and Green still didn't get an invite, that would be notable.

And who knows, maybe Green will get an invite before the July camp or if one or two of the superstar forwards goes down he will get a look. All in all, nothing to get too upset about. Just another fact of life living in the LeBron era.

Here's the tweet from the Boston Globe's Gary Washburn:



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