Cleveland Cavaliers star Kevin Love is withdrawing from Team USA and won’t travel to the Tokyo Olympics, his agent Jeff Schwartz confirmed to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
“I am incredibly disappointed to not be heading to Tokyo with Team USA, but you need to be at absolute peak performance to compete at the Olympic level and I am just not there yet,” Love said in a statement to ESPN.
The 32-year-old had spent the last 10 days in camp with Team USA, who also lost guard Bradley Beal to health and safety protocols.
Love has been working back from a right calf injury that limited him to 25 games this past NBA season and averaged just 12.2 points, the lowest since his rookie year. Head coach Gregg Popovich expected the forward to play a big role for Team USA.
“We’re going to work his ass off the next four to five weeks and demand a lot,” Popovich told reporters at the start of camp.
“That’s going to definitely get him back into the rhythm he needs to be in to continue to play. I think that’s one of the big reasons he wanted to do this, so he can get himself back to who he was.”
