2020 Olympics

Brett Brown Steps Down As Australia’s Head Coach

October 13th, 2020 at 9:00am CST by Luke Adams

After losing his NBA position earlier this year, former Sixers head coach Brett Brown has now elected to step down from his international coaching job as well. Brown has resigned from his role as Australia’s head coach and won’t lead the Boomers at the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics, the program announced today in a press release.

“Whilst I have a deep and long-standing passion for Australian Basketball, I am currently unable to commit to coaching the Boomers at next year’s Olympic Games,” Brown said in a statement. “The uncertainties around the direction of my professional future unfortunately mean that I cannot commit to the time and preparation that this job deserves and requires. The difficulties around traveling internationally with my family during the pandemic have also contributed to my decision.”

Basketball Australia CEO Jerril Rechter said in a statement that the program is “naturally disappointed” that Brown will no longer be coaching the team, but understands his decision.

Brown initially finalized a deal to coach the Australian national team last November, after the club had clinched a spot in the Tokyo Olympics with its fourth-place finish at the 2019 World Cup. Those Olympics had originally been scheduled to begin on July 24, 2020. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the new start date for the Tokyo games is July 23, 2021.

Aron Baynes, Matthew Dellavedova, Joe Ingles, and Patty Mills are among the notable players expected to represent Australia in Japan next summer, as long as they’re able to work around the revamped NBA schedule. The selection of Brown as the Boomers’ head coach led to speculation that Sixers star Ben Simmons may elect to participate as well — it’s not clear if Brown’s resignation will influence Simmons’ decision one way or the other.

And-Ones: Adebayo, Olympics, NBA Foundation, Tsai

October 9th, 2020 at 5:01pm CST by Luke Adams

Although he didn’t make the final 12-man squad that took part in the 2019 World Cup, Heat center Bam Adebayo participated in Team USA’s training camp leading up to that event and received consideration to represent the U.S. in the international competition.

With the Tokyo Olympics on tap for the summer of 2021, however, another national program is hoping to recruit Adebayo away from USA Basketball, according to Colin Udoh of ESPN, who says Nigeria wants to add the big man to its Olympic roster. Adebayo’s father is Nigerian, Udoh notes.

“Having Bam in our national team is a possibility that we are considering as a federation ahead of the 2020 Olympics and beyond,” Nigeria Basketball Federation president Musa Kida said in a statement to ESPN. “We are excited about how far he has gone and what he can achieve in his career with D’Tigers if he chooses to play for Nigeria.”

Nigeria has already earned an Olympic berth and – assuming next season’s schedule allows for it – is expected to feature NBA players such as Josh Okogie, Al-Farouq Aminu, Chimezie Metu, and potentially Spencer Dinwiddie. It remains to be seen if the team will be able to land Adebayo, but he has said in the past that he’d consider Nigeria if asked. He also may be more open to the idea after being cut from last year’s Team USA roster.

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

The NBA and NBPA issued a joint press release today announcing the board of directors for the NBA Foundation, a new organization dedicated to driving “economic empowerment for Black communities through employment and career advancement.” In addition to Harrison Barnes and Tobias Harris, whose involvement was previously reported, the NBA Foundation’s board of directors will be made up of Adam Silver, Michele Roberts, and four team owners (Gayle Benson, Tony Ressler, Larry Tanenbaum, and Michael Jordan).
As we relayed earlier today, China’s CCTV has lifted its year-long ban on NBA broadcasts, citing the league’s role in fighting COVID-19 in China as a primary reason for that decision. NetsDaily suggests Nets owner Joe Tsai may have played a key part in that effort, having sent a $3.7MM donation to China in February to help fight the pandemic.
In an Insider-only article for ESPN.com, Bobby Marks lists the trade assets held by all 30 teams, including moveable players, surplus draft picks, and trade exceptions.

Adam Silver Says NBA Players In 2021 Olympics ‘Unlikely’

October 3rd, 2020 at 12:28pm CST by marksuleymanov

With the NBA expecting the 2020/21 season to start until this upcoming January at the earliest, the league’s players will likely not participate in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, commissioner Adam Silver said on NBATV (via NBC Sports).

“I think it’s unlikely, at the end of the day, that, if we start late, we would stop for the Olympics,” Silver said. “Because, as you know, it’s not just a function of stopping for the period in which they are competing over in Tokyo. But they require training camp, and then they require rest afterwards.”

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the 2020 Olympics to be postponed, thus casting doubt on NBA players’ ability to participate. The Olympics are set for a July 23, 2021 start, so an NBA season that begins in January or later would result in a likely conflict.

While Team USA would be the most severely impacted without the NBA’s top players available, international teams would also be affected as the league’s best international talents would be unavailable.

“There are so many incredible players, beginning with the USA team, we’ll be able to field a very competitive team,” Silver said. “I am a bit worried about some of the international teams, because, as you know, some of their stars play in our league, and their absence would make a huge difference for those national teams.”

And-Ones: Olympics, Playoff Pay, Coronavirus, J. Young

September 28th, 2020 at 8:54pm CST by Luke Adams

With the start and end dates for the 2020/21 NBA season still very much up in the air, USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo is having a hard time planning for next year’s Olympics in Tokyo, as Chris Sheridan of BasketballNews.com writes. Colangelo tells Sheridan that Lakers forward LeBron James and other U.S. stars have conveyed interest in participating in those Olympics, but haven’t been able to commit to anything due to the uncertainty of the schedule.

“I was told the NBA season would start in December, and then it was Christmas, and then after January 1, and that keeps pushing the schedule for me,” Colangelo said. “The NBA season typically takes 170 or 171 days to complete, so that creates a conflict on paper.”

The Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to begin on July 23, with qualifying tournaments for the final four spots in the men’s tournament set to tip off on June 29. If the ’20/21 season runs deep into the summer again, it will compromise the availability of NBA players for Team USA and other countries, but Colangelo remains hopeful that many of those players will be able to participate.

“If the (NBA) season conflicts with the Olympics, I might have 14 non-playoff teams to choose from, but then other players will become available as the NBA playoffs progress,” Colangelo told Sheridan. “The problem is that the ICO has a rule mandating an early submission of a 12-man roster. But with a pandemic, the hope would be that you’ve got to set aside outdated rules. I assume people will be reasonable and come up with some kind of a program that works.”

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

The winner of the NBA Finals between the Lakers and Heat will earn $5,791,041 of this year’s league-wide playoff pool money, notes Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. The losing team will divvy up a $4,399,686 share.
The NBA, which is hoping to play games in teams’ home arenas during the 2020/21 season, sent a 32-page manual to clubs outlining the cleaning and disinfecting protocols to “reset” those arenas, sources tell Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Former Pacers guard Joe Young is returning to the Chinese Basketball Association for the 2020/21 season, signing a deal with the Beijing Royal Fighers, as Nicola Lupo of Sportando relays. After spending three seasons in Indiana from 2015-18, Young has played for the Nanjing Monkey King in China for the last two years.

NBA Flexible With Start Of Next Season

August 8th, 2020 at 4:38pm CST by Arthur Hill

The NBA’s experiment at the Disney World campus continues to be a success, with no COVID-19 cases reported in the latest round of testing, but uncertainty still surrounds the start of next season, writes ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The league office is telling teams that the priority will be to play a full 82-game schedule and to have fans present for as many of those games as possible. December 1 has been set as a tentative start date, but the league is willing to be flexible if it would result in more games with paying customers. Sources tell Wojnarowski that Martin Luther King Day, January 18, is being considered for opening night and February and March are realistic as well.

It’s also possible that some NBA cities will be able to host large crowds by winter, while others still have high virus rates. Woj says conversations have been held regarding neutral-site games or having teams temporarily move to non-NBA markets where fans could attend. Canada’s borders may still be closed to U.S. traveling parties when the season begins, forcing the Raptors to move their operations to an American city.

The NBA doesn’t plan to repeat the “bubble” concept with 22 teams, but sources say several teams could be sent to regional sites for roughly a month at a time to play games. They would then go home to train for about two weeks before moving onto the next site. Orlando is being considered as one of the cities, along with Las Vegas, which was a finalist to host this year’s restart.

Wojnarowski shares a few more tidbits from Orlando:

There’s growing skepticism that next season can be completed in time for NBA players to take part in the Olympics. However, one idea being discussed is a month-long midseason break similar to what the NHL has done for the Winter Olympics.
The reactions of other teams fighting for the eighth and ninth seeds in the Western Conference ranged from “displeased” to “livid” regarding Utah’s decision to rest four starters Friday in a loss to the Spurs. San Antonio is among six closely bunched teams that are fighting to reach the postseason, and there are concerns that the Jazz may do the same thing when they face the Spurs again in their final reseeding game. The league has warned teams about preserving the integrity of the games, but it is limited in what it can do about players sitting out.
The players union doesn’t support a plan to bring the eight idle teams to Orlando once the first group leaves the WDW campus. Sources tell Wojnarowski that the “inevitable solution” will be voluntary workouts at team facilities. The NBPA won’t consent to making those workouts mandatory.
Jacque Vaughn has been assured he will get “significant consideration” in the Nets‘ search for a new coach, which is expected to begin once Brooklyn is eliminated from the playoffs. In Chicago, the new management team is taking its time in evaluating Jim Boylen’s coaching future. Several prominent assistants who would be considered for the job are in Orlando, so there’s no rush to make a move, Wojnarowski adds.

Wizards Notes: Beal, Grant, Hachimura, Go-Go

July 6th, 2020 at 2:05pm CST by Luke Adams

Wizards guard Bradley Beal still hasn’t finalized a decision on whether or not he’ll participate in the NBA’s restart, but head coach Scott Brooks said today that Beal is expected to join the club on its flight to Florida this week, as Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN writes.

Beal said last week that he remains undecided about whether he’ll play this summer, expressing some concerns about the shortened ramp-up period and the possible injury risk. Brooks, who said there’s no specific timeline for Beal’s decision, said today that his All-Star guard is looking “great” in workouts.

“His physical condition has been pretty good and continues to improve every day along with our other guys,” Brooks said, per Youngmisuk. “We are all getting tested every day and as of right now he’s a go and we are all going down there ready to compete and get better and play to get in a playoff position. He looks great.”

The Wizards, who are 5.5 games out of the last playoff spot in the East, will be without All-Star point guard John Wall and sharpshooter Davis Bertans during the restart — Wall continues to rehab his Achilles injury, while Bertans opted out due to his impending free agency and his ACL injury history.

Here’s more on the Wizards:

Jerian Grant, who replaced Bertans on the Wizards’ summer roster as a substitute player, called it a “dream come true” to join his hometown team, as Jackson Filyo of WashingtonWizards.com details. Grant, who grew up in the D.C. area, worked as a ball boy for the franchise as a kid, and his father Harvey Grant played for the then-Bullets from 1988-93.
Rui Hachimura, who would be preparing to represent Japan in the Tokyo Olympics this summer if not for the coronavirus, remains hopeful that he’ll be able to play for his home country in 2021, writes Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington. “I’m honestly so sad about it. We can’t do anything about it,” Hachimura said of the postponement, adding that he has been looking forward to the event for years. “Of course, I would like to play in the Olympics. Next year, we’ll see how things go.”
Pops Mensah-Bonsu, the general manager of the Capital City Go-Go, won’t return to the Wizards’ G League affiliate for the 2020/21 season, according to Candace Buckner of The Washington Post. “I wanted to pursue some other things at this moment in time,” Mensah-Bonsu said. The remainder of the 2019/20 NBAGL season was canceled and it’s unclear when next season will start — that uncertainty played a part in Mensah-Bonsu’s decision, per Buckner.

Kerr, Nurse, Others Unsure About 2021 Olympic Plans

June 10th, 2020 at 11:05am CST by Luke Adams

As the NBA works toward finalizing its rest-of-season schedule for 2019/20 and establishing a new calendar for the 2020/21 league year, one key issue to consider will be whether next season’s schedule overlaps with the Tokyo Olympics. The Tokyo games have been postponed to 2021 and are now set to begin on July 23, which could coincide with the late stages of the NBA’s ’21 postseason.

Avoiding that overlap will likely be a priority for the NBA. Besides the fact that the league won’t want its Finals competing with the Olympics for viewers, there are many NBA players and coaches who expect to participate in the Tokyo Olympics — or in the qualifying tournaments tentatively scheduled to begin on June 29, 2021.

One of those coaches is Steve Kerr of the Warriors, who is still on track to be an assistant on Gregg Popovich‘s Team USA staff. However, as Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press writes, Kerr remains in the dark on how next summer’s schedule will work and whether or not certain NBA personnel will still be involved in the Tokyo games.

“Believe it or not, I haven’t had a single conversation with Pop about that,” Kerr said. “And the reason is because we don’t know. We’ve been talking almost daily now for the last couple of weeks and before that we were speaking once every few weeks. So, we haven’t even had a single conversation because there’s nothing to report.”

Raptors head coach Nick Nurse, who is set to coach a Canadian team vying for an Olympic spot in a qualifying tournament next June, was equally uncertain about how things will play out, Reynolds notes.

“It’s complicated, is my best thought,” Nurse said. “I just don’t know enough to tell you what next season is going to look like. I don’t know. When’s it going to start? I think they’re talking about pushing it back, but I don’t know if they’re going to play games closer together. I don’t think so, that’s kind of a thing that everybody’s been happy that they continue to spread them out and lessen the back-to-backs and all those things.

“But if they do that, then it’s probably going to run into the Olympics, or really close to it, right? Lots of things that I don’t have a crystal ball on.”

If the NBA can finish its 2020/21 regular season sometime in May, that would give teams and coaches on non-playoff teams time to convene for camps, qualifying tournaments, and the Olympics themselves. But there’s no guarantee that those options will be available to NBA playoff teams, even if the Finals are scheduled to end before July 23.

For instance, if the Raptors and Nuggets make deep playoff runs, Team Canada may not have Nurse or Jamal Murray available for that qualifying tournament in late June. Nikola Jokic also might not get a chance to play for Serbia if Denver is still alive when those qualifying tournaments begin.

For now, the NBA is focused on how to safely complete its 2019/20 season, but the Olympics represent just one of many obstacles that the league will have to sort out once it shifts its attention to future plans.

FIBA Announces New Olympic Qualifying Tournament Dates

May 14th, 2020 at 12:22pm CST by Luke Adams

With the Tokyo Olympics rescheduled for July 23 through August 8, 2021 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, FIBA has also postponed its qualifying tournaments that will decide the four open men’s basketball Olympics slots. According to a press release, those tournaments will take place from June 29 to July 4, 2021.

The four qualifying tournaments will be played in Canada (Victoria), Croatia (Split), Lithuania (Kaunas), and Serbia (Belgrade), with those countries among those still vying to be part of the 12-team field for the Olympics.

Brazil, Greece, Turkey, China, Poland, Russia, and Germany are among the other teams that will compete in the four tournaments, which will be made up of six teams apiece (24 in total). The United States, Spain, France, Australia, Nigeria, Argentina, Iran, and Japan have already qualified.

While a number of the countries competing in those qualifying tournaments could theoretically have multiple NBA players on their roster, the new dates may not line up well with the NBA’s calendar. For now, it seems likely that the start of the 2020/21 season will be postponed and that the NBA will still try to play a full 82-game schedule, which means the regular season could run into June, with the playoffs extending into August.

In that scenario, stars on likely 2021 playoff teams – such as Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece), Nikola Jokic (Serbia), and Jamal Murray (Canada), among others – could still be playing in the NBA postseason when the qualifiers take place, preventing them from participating in those tournaments.

Even if the NBA resists making major changes to its schedule and attempts to finish the 2021 Finals in June like usual, the qualifying tournaments would take place during the start of free agency, which could affect some players’ plans.

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2020 Olympics

And-Ones: Japan, Dinwiddie, Tavares, Kobe

April 21st, 2020 at 5:26pm CST by Luke Adams

Japan’s B.League may serve as a cautionary tale as the NBA weighs whether resuming its season will be possible, writes David Aldridge of The Athletic. As Aldridge details, Japan’s basketball league attempted to resume play in mid-March after suspending play in February, but only got in one weekend of games before the season was canceled for good on March 27.

According to Aldridge, several players and at least one referee contracted COVID-19 following the resumption of the season, and multiple players refused to play any more games.

While Japan’s league didn’t attempt playing in a “bubble” city, all players and teams were practicing social distancing and games were being played without fans in attendance. Former NBA forward DaJuan Summers, who was playing in Japan this season, saw first-hand how the league’s attempt to restart was derailed, and isn’t sure that the NBA will be able to successfully pull it off this summer.

“I understand the risk,” Summers told Aldridge. “I don’t think it’s worth it. I don’t think it’s worth it right now. Of course, we all want see if LeBron (James) and A.D. (Anthony Davis) and those guys are gonna win a Finals. Or if (Giannis) Antetokounmpo is finally going to get to the Finals in the East without LeBron or Kawhi (Leonard) over there stopping him. There’s so many basketball lovers that’s hurting right now. But more importantly, there’s so many people dying.”

Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

A Nigerian Basketball Federation official tells Colin Udoh of ESPN that conversations about adding Spencer Dinwiddie to Nigeria’s national team have been going on for about a year, despite the fact that the Nets guard has no obvious connection to the country. Dinwiddie is reportedly trying to acquire a Nigerian passport through naturalization to play for the team in the Tokyo Olympics.
Former Hawks and Cavaliers big man Walter (Edy) Tavares told Portuguese website DTudo1Pouco (hat tip to Nicola Lupo of Sportando) that he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a return to the NBA, despite his current long-term contract with Real Madrid in Spain.
Family members of four passengers who died in the January helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant have filed wrongful death lawsuits against the companies that owned and operated the aircraft, according to Brian Melley of The Associated Press. Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s widow, previously filed suit against Island Express Helicopters Inc. and its owner Island Express Holding Corp.

Andrew Bogut Deciding Between Olympics, Retirement

April 19th, 2020 at 12:00pm CST by Arthur Hill

Andrew Bogut had hoped to use the Summer Olympics as his farewell to basketball, but the one-year delay caused by the coronavirus has complicated those plans, writes Dennis Passa of The Associated Press. At age 35, Bogut isn’t sure if he can go through another year of training to prepare for the competition.

“I haven’t done any basketball since the season ended and it feels good waking up, getting out of bed and not feeling like I’m walking on glass,” Bogut said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Offsiders program. “It’s (my career) all been thrown into a washing machine essentially … but there’s a decision to be made probably by mid-May.”

After spending 13 years in the NBA, the top pick in the 2005 draft has played for Sydney in Australia’s National Basketball League for the past two seasons. He won an NBA title with Golden State in 2015 and rejoined the Warriors after his NBL season ended last year, averaging 3.5 points and 5.0 rebounds in 11 games.

Sydney reached the NBL finals this season, but the five-game series was stopped after three games because of the pandemic, and Perth – which held a 2-1 lead – was awarded the title. Bogut blasted the league’s handling of the situation, saying the players were “used like pawns.”

Bogut, who has been part of Australia’s international team since 2004, would love to cap off his career with an Olympic medal. He played an important role in a fourth-place finish at the 2019 World Cup and believes the Australians will be in contention with Sixers star Ben Simmons on the team.

“We’ve been tantalizingly close and the squad we’re going to have is arguably going to be the best squad in the history of the Boomers, on paper at least,” Bogut said. “To be part of that, selfishly, is something I really want to do, but the body is what it comes down to. I can get up for a basketball game any day of the week, but it’s hard to get up for five, six days of training a week and lifting weights.”

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