D-Rose named finalist for 2012 Olympic team

Another Summer Olympics year has arrived and USA Basketball got the ball rolling Monday by releasing a 20-man preliminary roster for the next men’s basketball national team.

As expected, Derrick Rose is on the list. He started at point guard at the 2010 FIBA World Championships in Turkey and helped led Team USA to a gold medal.

Other players named as finalists for the 2012 Olympic team are Miami’s LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade; New York’s Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler; the L.A. Lakers’ Kobe Bryant; Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; Orlando’s Dwight Howard; Portland’s LaMarcus Aldridge; Minnesota’s Kevin Love; Memphis’ Rudy Gay; Dallas’ Lamar Odom; Philadelphia’s Andre Iguodala; New Orleans’ Eric Gordon; New Jersey’s Deron Williams; and Chris Paul and Blake Griffin from the L.A. Clippers.

The team will once again be coached by Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, with assistants Jim Boeheim, Mike D’Antoni and Nate McMillan.

Picking the names is the easy part. Cutting eight players from this list before the heading for London will be more interesting.

It will be a tough call, because there are leftovers from both the 2008 gold-medal Olympic team as well as the 2010 World Championships squad. No one played for both teams.

Injuries are bound to knock a few people off, but there are certain stars with enough status to ensure they won’t be cut.

Here’s an early guess: Rose, Bryant, James, Wade, Howard, Durant and Anthony are locks. Paul, Griffin and Bosh are virtual locks. So that essentially sets two players at each position and leaves two spots up for grabs.

At this point, Team USA could mix and match. Westbrook, Aldridge and Love would all be tough to leave off from a talent perspective. One of those three could turn out to be the final cut.

Team management might also consider veterans who will happily take a smaller role, so Billups and Odom might have a small chance of making it. Chandler, Gay, Gordon, Iguodala and Williams will most likely face an uphill struggle to make the squad.

Among the Bulls, Joakim Noah (France) and Luol Deng (Great Britain) are expected to participate in the Olympics.