Zach Edey turns down Team Canada | Focus on NBA

Zach Edey isn't going to let anything get in the way of getting as ready as possible for his NBA career, and that includes playing for his national Team Canada team this summer.

The ninth pick in this year's NBA Draft and back to back college national player of the year announced in a statement today that he would be pulling himself out of contention for Team Canada at the Olympics this year to focus on his NBA career including joining the Memphis Grizzlies for summer league.

Edey was a part of Team Canada's FIBA World Cup team last season causing him to miss a good portion of summer camp at Purdue and Purdue's trip to Europe ahead of its regular season that ended in the National Title game.

This time Edey plans to get a jump start on his professional career and be there for all of the Grizzlies summer reps in the summer league and get to learn his new team and league.

Team Canada representatives including its head coach addressed the news to media and said they'd miss the big man but it's next man up mentality while looking forward to Edey being a part of the team again in the future.

Edey dominated college basketball, turning from an outside the top 400 recruit to the most dominant player for two seasons. He's now staring down his next challenge. Edey was drafted ninth in a draft that was widely regarded as lacking elite talent.

Edey has had his doubters about how his game will transfer to the NBA.

But if this first choice of Edey's is any indication, he's going to bring the same locked in mentality to getting better at the next stage of the game as he proved in college. Edey released this full statement in regards to the decision.

He acknowledged it was a difficult decision, particularly with the timing of the Olympics in Paris where Team Canada will look to medal with a bunch of top NBA talent. Edey played off the bench for the Team Canada FIBA World Cup team where Team Canada beat Team USA for the bronze medal.

But Edey state he now owes it to the Grizzlies to properly prepare for everything the NBA will have in store for him which will mean summer league games and off season camp with the Grizzlies before likely taking over as the Grizzlies starting center for the season.