After having to settle for bronze in 2004 Athens Olympics and bronze in 2006 FIBA World Cup, USA Basketball was determined to assemble the best team possible for t he 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Team USA fielded a team full of superstars for the Olympics which was labelled the Redeem Team. It featured the likes of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, among others, and won gold in China.
Gilbert Arenas was included in the pool of players that competed for a spot on Team USA. Eventually, he did not make the team. He opened about that in an interview on “Games with Names” podcast.
“If you watch the redeem team, you’ll see a small glimpse of me in it…. Because it was a Nike event I thought they were kind of biased against Adidas players,” he said.
“So I wasn’t fairly judged in my mind. I was part of the second unit and I was the best player in the second unit…If we won games against the first unit it was because of me…
“It was a one-man wrecking show against that lineup… So yea they told me I was on the bubble of making the team because I pulled my groin…
“So I was like ‘I think I pulled my groin and I don’t want to hold up a position for someone else to make this team because I don’t know how much this is gonna be lingering. And then Colangelo was like ‘don’t worry about it you’re on the bubble anyways.’ and I was like ‘OK I’m out of here.'”
