The rigors of a 106-game season in the rearview mirror, Derrick White had a champion's itinerary laid out for July: Host his annual youth summer camp in his native Parker, Colorado, make a quick dash to Los Angeles to mingle with teammate Jaylen Brown at the ESPY Awards, then jet to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico for a belated 30th birthday party with family and friends.
Then Team USA called and completely supersized his international travel plans.
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With an offer to replace Kawhi Leonard on this year’s Olympics squad, White found himself immediately redirected to Abu Dhabi -- the first of two trips he’d make there in a three-month span. Then London. Then Paris. He sacrificed some summer fun another hefty dose of basketball.
His reward: the experience of a lifetime and a shiny gold medal. Even if his friends still made him a little jealous about what he was missing in Cabo.
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“Everybody went but me,” said White. “We had a bunch of friends and it was for my 30th and it was going to be a big to do. So they all went and, yeah, they had a great time. They had a cardboard cutout of me.”
And those FaceTime calls, particularly with an 11-hour time difference between Abu Dhabi and Mexico, still stung a bit.
“That kind of made it worse,” White said of seeing his cardboard cutout on the phone from afar. "Like, ‘Oh, you’re here!’ I’m in the hotel room like, ‘Yeah, that’s great.’”
Despite missing the fun, White raves about the Team USA experience. Presented with a picture of him alongside Kevin Durant, LeBron James, and other stars from that team, White still marvels at his inclusion.
“This picture is pretty crazy, honestly, with like legends of the game and just to share the floor with them, to just be in the locker room with them, just to learn as much as I could from the best players in basketball,” said White. “It was a dream come true and something I never thought or like dreamed about as a kid. But special to be a part of.”
Getting to brag to some of the elite of the NBA about how he and Team USA teammates Jayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday had just completed a championship season was fun, too.
The Celtics have long benefited from White’s participation with Team USA. While still with the Spurs, he spent time with a quartet of Celtics players that included Tatum and Brown during the 2019 FIBA World Cup. And Boston already might be seeing the benefits of White joining NBA royalty this past summer.
On opening night, White quietly scored 24 points on efficient 8-of-13 shooting (including six 3-pointers), as the Celtics romped the rival Knicks. White was a plus-21 in plus/minus over 27 minutes of play.
One season after making a strong case for All-Star inclusion only to be stiff-armed in reserve voting, White has another chance to add to a ridiculously successful resume that has seen him earn another All-Defense nod, win an NBA title, sign a lucrative contract extension, and win a gold medal in the past calendar year.
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Yes, it’s been a pretty good run for White.
About the only downside was all the delayed dental work he’s required after messing up his two front teeth on the Garden parquet during Boston’s Finals-clinching win over the Mavericks in June.
"I was supposed to get [the teeth] fixed and then I got the Olympics call,” said White. “So I was nervous the whole time that my teeth were going to fall out during the Olympics. But, after the Olympics, I got them fixed.”
But that included a couple of long stints in the dentist’s chair right before the Celtics reconvened for training camp in September.
“I got three root canals,” said White.”I [was] in the dentist those two trips for like eight hours … But great people in the dentist office. They’ve been taking good care of me, so shout out to them.”
And that trip to Cabo? Maybe he can reschedule for his 31st birthday. Perhaps there will be another championship to celebrate at that point.
