They combined to help USA Basketball win a gold medal at the FIBA World Cup in 2014. Along with being New Orleans Pelicans teammates for a year-plus, it’s now possible they’ll be together again in more international events in the near future.
On Friday, USAB announced that Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins were among 35 players selected to be in the USA men’s national team pool. From that group, 12 players will be chosen to participate in the 2019 World Cup, as well as the 2020 Olympics.
During the ’14 World Cup, Davis was America’s third-leading scorer, averaging 12.3 points per game. Cousins was the third-leading rebounder for the squad, pulling down 5.7 boards, to go with 9.8 points a contest. Cousins was also a contributor to USAB’s Olympic gold medal team during the 2016 Olympics in Rio, which Davis missed while recovering from injury. Cousins averaged 9.1 points and 5.8 rebounds for Team USA in those ’16 Olympics.