The old saying goes “you should play for the name on the front of your jersey and not the businessman who was elected to serve it as president”. Or something like that. Whatever the case, the new chairman for USA Basketball is making it clear that players representing the United States will be doing just that, regardless of their thoughts about President-Elect Donald Trump.
“They are not representing President-elect Trump,” General Martin E. Dempsey, the newly appointed chairman of USA Basketball, said Thursday in an ESPN podcast. “They are representing the country where we have a system that stood the test of time with three separate and equal branches of government, representing 350 million people.”
On the surface, this pretty much goes without saying, doesn’t it? It’s not as though the USA Basketball team in the Olympics and other tournaments has been representing Barack Obama or George W. Bush before him. They have all represented the United States first and foremost. Well, except for the team that won the bronze in Athens. Forget about them.
It is no secret that President-Elect Trump is a polarizing figure, and a handful of NBA faces have let their feelings fly about Trump, including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, and even LeBron James. But playing for Team USA is all about the red, white and blue. And gold.
[ESPN]