Gilbert Arenas Didn’t Hold Back On The USA’s ‘Sorry Ass’ FIBA World Cup Team

Trae Young appeared on “Gil’s Arena,” the podcast hosted by former NBA player and current media personality Gilbert Arenas, and discussed his desire to represent USA Basketball some day. While he’s one of the top players in the NBA, Young has never gotten the opportunity to play for the national team, and as he laid out on the show, he would love to get the chance to join the team at the Olympics next year.

A pretty nice clip! Young would be a fun player in the international game — as he said, his passing, in particular, would be an asset — but we’ll have to wait and see if he makes it. But once he finished talking, the always outspoken Arenas excoriated the current United States squad that is about to participate in the FIBA World Cup a little later this month, calling them a “sorry ass group” and suggesting that Nike plays an outsized role in keeping guys affiliated with other apparel companies off of the team.

“I’m happy for the people who make it,” Arenas said. “It’s cool, it’s cool for some of the guys who got there that I don’t know, some of them probably don’t even start on their team. I don’t know, I don’t wanna look at it, cause it’s embarrassing sometimes where you have star players who’s really stars that do wanna participate, and you just automatically just say, yeah, he’s not gonna fit our style.”

While the World Cup featuring a slightly weaker USA team isn’t anything new — the team came in seventh place in the tournament back in 2019 — this is an especially young team, as only four players have earned All-Star nods and none of them have made it more than once.