Serbia won the silver medal at the FIBA World Cup last summer, led by Bogdan Bogdanovic and a core of players from high-level European teams who just know how to play the international game.
Serbia will add Nikola Joikic to that mix for the Paris Olympics.
President of the Olympic Committee of Serbia, Bozidar Maljkovic, made the announcement — which wasn’t a surprise — in an interview with Juan Jimenez of AS.com (with a hat tip and translation credit to basketnews.com).
“We didn’t have NBA MVP, Nikola Jokic. Neither Vasilije Micic, the MVP of the EuroLeague. Nor Nikola Kalinic. I think we come together and get the best out of us, as in all sports,” he said. “I can be proud of Novak Djokovic’s season and Ivana Spanovic [Serbian long jumper], who won gold in the 2023 World Athletics Championships.
“By the way, I already announced that in Paris, they will be all, Jokic included. The Paris Games will be a party, and I am confident that Serbian sport will have a large participation.”
Jokic took this summer off from international play after a run with the Nuggets to win the NBA Finals. He, like a lot of top NBA players, looked at FIBA’s messed up schedule for the World Cup and Olympics in back-to-back years, understood that playing in both would mean essentially two full years of competitive basketball at the highest levels with little time off to rest and recover, then made a choice and picked the Olympics over the World Cup.
Serbia is a clear medal favorite in Paris, along with what will be a stacked American team that is expected to have Joel Embiid, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Jayson Tatum, Devin Booker and a host of other elite talents. Germany (which won gold at the FIBA World Cup), a Canadian team that won bronze (and is led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and is stacked with NBA talent) and host France also are expected to be in the medal mix. All of those rosters are stacked with talent, but how players come out of this NBA season health-wise will impact Olympic decisions.
Paris is setting up to be an insane basketball competition.
