Gobert wonders if Jazz teammate Favors retired because of USA camp exclusion

The Utah Jazz have been all over the international basketball news pages this week.

Most notably, there was sophomore point guard Dante Exum tearing his ACL in a friendly for Australia. There was also Joe Ingles pulling out from the Australian team, Rudy Gobert confirming his place on France's roster, and Gordon Hayward being named to USA Basketball's 34-man minicamp roster for later this month.

There was also the small note that USA Basketball made a last-minute decision to go with Milwaukee Bucks point guard Michael Carter-Williams over Jazz guard Trey Burke on the minicamp roster.

But it's the exclusion of another Jazz player that caught the attention of Gobert, who can't seem to believe frontcourt tag-team partner Derrick Favors was left off the roster.

Gobert's surprise is reasonable, but the list of players not included on the USA roster could stand as an international team of its own. The U.S. is just too deep to realistically include every good player, and even if Favors may be a better overall player than some of the names included, a lot of factors - potential role, long-term upside with the program, previous commitment to the program, and so on - go into these decisions.

If nothing else, Gobert's comments serve as a reminder both that Favors is very good - he averaged 16 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks as a 23-year-old last season - and that the Jazz could be primed for a breakout this season, even without Exum. After all, the Jazz went 19-10 down the stretch last year, posting a top-five point differential during that time, all while standing as the league's second-youngest team.