LAS VEGAS—It was, in some ways, the definition of pointless: A basketball practice held in the swelter of a 44C July day for a United States national team that won’t next play a meaningful game for more than a year.
And yet, given that DeMar DeRozan was in attendance, let’s just say the post-practice media scrum on the first day of USA Basketball’s largely inconsequential mini-camp was a little more emotionally charged than the blasé circumstances might have otherwise dictated. Sure, a little more than a week had passed since DeRozan was shipped from Toronto to San Antonio in the most ambitious transaction in Raptors history.