Vassilis Spanoulis, the head coach of the Greek national team, confirmed that Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo will suit up for Greece during the Olympic qualifying tournament in early July, tweets Harris Stavrou of SPORT24.gr.
The news is noteworthy because the two-time MVP and former Finals MVP hasn’t played a game since April 9, when he sustained a left calf strain. He was sidelined for Milwaukee’s entire first-round playoff series with Indiana; the Bucks were eliminated in six games.
At the beginning of May, Antetokounmpo said he did his best to return, but he was still quite limited by the injury.
“I tried my best to come back to help my teammates,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to see them being out there and not being able to help them, but I just couldn’t. I did all the tests I had to do, these protocols you have to follow and have to check the boxes. I wasn’t even close at checking the boxes.”
That same ESPN report stated that while Antetokounmpo hoped to play in the Olympic qualifying tournament, he had yet to make a firm commitment, and his decision would be based on how his calf was responding. Evidently he’s feeling better now, since Greece’s head coach says the perennial All-NBA member will be playing next month.
As Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops writes, Antetokounmpo has represented his home country in multiple international events since 2013, most recently the EuroBasket tournament in 2022. Greece hasn’t qualified for men’s basketball at the Olympics since 2008 in Beijing, when the team was eliminated in the quarterfinals.
Host country Greece will face the Dominican Republic on July 3 and Egypt on July 4, according to Askounis. The top two finishers from each group will advance to the single-elimination semifinal. The other side of the bracket features Croatia, Slovenia and New Zealand. Only the winner of the tournament will advance to Group A of the 2024 Paris Olympics, which will begin in late July.
Thats an interesting group stage. Greece definitely needs Giannis to even be competitive.
I wonder if Luka plays for Slovenia. If the NBA Finals go all the way, game 7 is on June 23. Qualifiers in the beginning of July. That’s a tough schedule.
Luka is 100% playing. He wants to be in Paris and Slovenia needs him to advance.
Domenican Republuc and Egypt should be easy enough. They shouldnt need that many minutes.
Main challenge will be the final against Slovenian
Will the rest of the Antetekounbo family be on the national team as well??
Thanny is injured, so he’ll take on his usual role of cheerleader. I’m not sure about Jethro, Kermit, Horatio or Melvin’s statuses.
The last thing I wanna hear from a guy who missed the last two postseasons because of injury is that he is playing more basketball this year.
This Olympics is going to be epic. You have to let the stars play. Greece probably isn’t deep enough to beat Slovenia though