Leo Rautins, head coach of Canada, was asked about the absence of Tristan Thompson during their Olympic qualifying.
"I don’t think there’s a negative with Tristan. He’s told me he wants to play, he’s told everybody else he wants to play, it’s not that he doesn’t want to deal with it.
"All of our conversations with Tristan’s people are, one, he made a promise to his mom academically to do some stuff and, two, the word was he was just physically wiped out. I can tell you, I watched what Andy (Rautins, a Knicks draft pick in 2010) went through last year in the pre-draft stuff, he was wiped out and that might have led to what happened later in the summer, he was exhausted. I’m not going to question that.
"Tristan’s a great kid, he’s been involved in our camps as a high schooler, there’s no negative there.
"If people want to make one out of that, I think that’s just looking for something."