Fast PP. Champ PP. Captain America PP.
Payton Pritchard eats and sleeps basketball. He once said in an interview that he’ll hire his friends that play overseas to come out and defend him over the summer just to see if he can take them. Well, after winning a championship and shifting the momentum with arguably the most memorable shot in the Finals, Pritchard will continue to grind with Team USA this summer.
This isn’t getting some extra run in Summer League or showing out in a Pacific Northwest pro-am. For the second straight off-season, Pritchard was named to the USA Men’s Select Team that includes Duke’s Cooper Flagg, Miami Heat’s Jaime Jaquez Jr., and Houston Rockets’ Jabari Smith and Amen Thompson.
“I was definitely very fortunate to get into that circle and to be chosen for that. It was a nice realization that people are seeing what I’m doing,” Payton said of his involvement with the national team. “For me, I look at it as an opportunity to compete and show more people that haven’t seen it or get to see it yet on that stage, what it really is for me. I think I belong with the best.”
Last summer, Pritchard showed out with the prep squad, continuing his relationship with Team USA. Back in 2017, he won a bronze medal in the FIBA 3-on-3 World Cup. Of course, he’ll also have some familiarity with the opposing team. Fellow champs Jayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday are repping Team USA in Paris this summer.
