LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard Not Expected To Play Together In 2018 Team USA Minicamp

No NBA players have been in the news more than LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard during the offseason. There have been plenty of rumors about the possibility of the superstars joining forces with the Los Angeles Lakers next season, but we now know that they won’t play together this summer.

According to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, James won’t participate in next week’s USA Basketball minicamp in Las Vegas. Leonard, however, is seriously considering going to the camp, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Adrian Wojnarowski.

James and Leonard are two of the 35 players included in the player pool for the USA Basketball men’s national team. That list of names will eventually be cut down to 12 players, who will compete in the 2019 World Cup in China and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

It might not come as much of a surprise that James won’t be in Las Vegas. He wasn’t part of the 2016 USA team that took home the gold medal at the Rio Olympics. James won gold medals with the U.S. in 2008 and 2012 after being part of the 2004 bronze medal team.

James’ days of competing in the Olympics could be over after racking up more than 44,000 regular-season minutes. Having played in eight straight NBA Finals, James holds the all-time record with 10,049 career playoff minutes. He’ll be 35 years old during the 2020 Summer Games.

Leonard’s decision to show up in Las Vegas could be a much more interesting one. It would mean he’ll have to interact with San Antonio Spurs’ head coach Gregg Popovich, who will be the coach of the national team. It was only a few weeks ago that Leonard met with Popovich and reportedly told him that he no longer wants to play for San Antonio.

The Spurs don’t appear any closer to trading Leonard. The Lakers seem content to wait until 2019 when they can sign Leonard or another star in free agency. Other teams are wary of making San Antonio a strong offer for a player that could leave in a year and is coming off a major injury.

Leonard could use the minicamp as a chance to prove that he’s healthy. After finishing in the top-three in MVP voting in consecutive seasons, Leonard played just nine games in the 2017-2018 season. At full strength, Leonard is one of the best players on Team USA.

San Antonio can offer Leonard a $221 million supermax contract extension, though the forward has made it clear he doesn’t want to sign a long-term deal with the Spurs.