Mason Plumlee thinks he has a strong case to make Team USA’s roster for the FIBA World Cup this month, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the Nets cetner played for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke.
“If anybody knows Coach K, he didn’t get to where he is by doing favors for people,” Plumlee said Wednesday. “He’d be the first person to get me out of there if I wasn’t cutting it. He’s all about winning, and by playing for him for four years, I know that.
“Now, I have an advantage in knowing what he’s looking for from me, but he didn’t win gold medals, he didn’t win world championships by doing favors for people. It’s just that simple.”
Plumlee was the biggest surprise to come out of last week’s national team camp in Las Vegas, where he went from the Select Team – a group of young players essentially on hand to be a practice squad for the national team – to being called up to the Senior Team by Krzyzewski and national team managing director Jerry Colangelo.
“As a player you dream and think anything can happen,” Plumlee said, “[but] they sat us down on the Select Team the first day and said, ‘Look, nobody’s gonna get pulled up. Don’t come out here coming at guys.’
“Because younger guys, you make it about me against Durant or me against Kyrie. They’re like, ‘This isn’t that. Just play as a team. You’re here to get us ready to play the international guys.’ … but then they had 19, so they decided to pull one up.”
Plumlee went on to have a very good week, including scoring 11 points in Friday’s abbreviated Blue-White Scrimmage. Plumlee looked nervous early in the scrimmage – something he admitted Wednesday – before a halftime pep talk from Derrick Rose straightened him out.
“The first half was tough,” he said. “I just wasn’t myself. I talked to one of the coaches at halftime and talked to [Rose], and he said, ‘Just do what you’ve been doing all week. Just talk, don’t get outside yourself.’ … I play better when I do that.”
He had a very impressive stretch in the third quarter against DeMarcus Cousins, his chief competition for the role of backing up Anthony Davis at center for Team USA. Though Cousins is the more skilled player, particularly at the offensive end, Plumlee is a more mobile big man who seems to fit better with the way Team USA wants to play.
“Oh, definitely,” he said. “That could be a big reason why they kept me going forward. Just got to show them that I can continue to do that this next month.”
The scrimmage was abbreviated because of the horrific right leg injury suffered by Paul George early in the fourth quarter, when he landed awkwardly after trying to block a James Harden fast-break layup.
It was actually the second such injury Plumlee has seen in person. During his final game at Duke, in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, Louisville guard Kevin Ware suffered a similar gruesome leg fracture. While some have questioned whether the NBA should allow its players to participate in international play, Plumlee said he never hesitated in being committed to playing for the national team.
“Not for me, personally,” he said. “I would say it’s a freak accident. Like Kevin Ware’s thing – he didn’t step on the standard of the basket. He was out on the court. It’s a freak thing. You can’t overreact to it. Like Colangelo said, they’ve never had something like this happen with [Team USA].
“The opportunity to represent your country should be paramount to the possibility of injury. We as players go play pickup, we play at the park, we play at the athletic club, whatever the case may be. It could happen anywhere, so if it happens, let’s do it going for something. Representing your country, you can’t beat that.”