Despite United States Basketball having a tough time fielding a team of legitimate All-Star for the upcoming FIBA World Cup, beloved NBA journeyman Jared Dudley is here to save the day.
The 34-year-old who has played for seven different NBA teams over the course of his 12-year NBA career, took to Twitter Tuesday to announce that he has accepted an invitation to play for Team USA.
The sarcastic post was obviously in response to the latest wave of USA roster dodgers, as Damian Lillard and DeMar DeRozan joined a massive list of elite players the likes of Anthony Davis, James Harden, Bradley Beal, Tobias Harris, CJ McCollum, and even New Orleans Pelicans rookie Zion Williamson, who have declined invitations to play for Team USA next month.
The basketball federation has gotten so desperate they even looked to bringing in fringe NBA starters Marcus Smart, and Thaddeus Young, and borderline non-All Stars like Jaylen Brown and Julius Randle for a team that normally features the NBA's biggest superstars.
Dudley has become one of the most beloved players in the league on social media, as the plodding and carnival-barking enforcer has been used as a ‘secret weapon’ the last few seasons as an antagonist meant to rile up the other team’s stars, most notably in the first round of the playoffs last season when Dudley’s Nets took on the Philadelphia Sixers.
Dudley was the top storyline in the series, calling Simmons an ‘average player’ at one point, and nearly goading Joel Embiid into an ejection in Game 4 during an absurdly unnecessary ‘brawl’ Dudley tried to incite.