{"id":336653,"date":"2023-10-05T22:03:12","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T22:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=336653"},"modified":"2023-10-06T01:02:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T01:02:08","slug":"nba-superstar-set-for-paris-2024-dream-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=336653","title":{"rendered":"NBA superstar set for Paris 2024 'Dream Team'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joel Embiid<\/a> will wear red, white and blue at Paris 2024<\/a> \u2014 not rouge, blanc and bleu.<\/p>\n

The NBA's reigning MVP and scoring champion has told USA Basketball that, after more than a year of deliberating, he has picked the Americans over France as his team for the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad.<\/p>\n

The Philadelphia 76ers'<\/a> star let USA Basketball managing director Grant Hill know his mind was made up and then made the decision public Friday morning AEDT. And one of the reasons Embiid cited in what had him pick the US: His son is American.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI've been here for such a long time,\u201d Embiid said in Fort Collins, Colorado, where the 76ers are having training camp \u2014 and where Embiid met with Hill this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past few years, every decision I've made has been based on just family. My family, my son, and having the chance to represent a country like the US, with my son being born here … I love my home country, but I really wanted to play in the Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NEW<\/p>\n

France had given Embiid an October 10 deadline for deciding on his Olympic Games plans. Embiid said he appreciated the interest the French showed in him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to take my time as much as possible,\u201d Embiid said. \u201cIt was kind of made hard by the deadline. But I'm happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

USA Basketball does not plan to name its team until next year, but if healthy, Embiid would seem certain to have one of the 12 spots on the squad that will be coached by Golden State\u2019s Steve Kerr with assistants Erik Spoelstra of Miami, Tyronn Lue of the Los Angeles Clippers and Mark Few of Gonzaga.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting for USA Basketball that Joel Embiid wants to represent the United States,\u201d Hill said. \u201cJoel and I have had several conversations about his goals and I\u2019m looking forward to continuing that dialogue knowing that one of those goals is to represent USA Basketball next summer in Paris. As I\u2019ve said before, I\u2019m looking forward to the process of building the 2024 USA Basketball Men\u2019s National Team roster over the next several months.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PHILADELPHIA,<\/p>\n

No player has been officially named to the team at this point.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe stronger the team, the better," San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich, who coached the Americans at the 2019 World Cup and then to gold at the Tokyo Games, said when told of Embiid's decision. \u201cInternational competition is tough. … That's great for us."<\/p>\n

The US will try for a fifth consecutive gold medal at Paris next summer. Embiid joins a long list of top NBA players who are hoping or planning to play for the US at The Olympics, including Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker and many more.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to play with great players,\u201d Embiid said. \u201cBut I didn't think about that at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adebayo had a simple reaction when he heard the Embiid news: \u201cWe're looking stacked,\u201d he said at Miami's training camp in Boca Raton, Florida.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/GoIdenState\/status\/1709966021497417925?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

Embiid became a US citizen last year and could have also chosen to play for France \u2014 or even Cameroon, his homeland, if it qualified for Paris 2024. Cameroon will be among 24 teams playing for the final four spots in the 12-nation Olympic field; the US, France, World Cup champion Germany, Serbia, Canada, Australia, Japan and South Sudan have already qualified for The Olympics.<\/p>\n

Embiid said again that it was difficult to choose between his three options.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn't have made this decision if I wasn't ready,\u201d said Embiid, who said he now wants to focus on Philadelphia's season and not continually hear questions about his Olympic plans.<\/p>\n

It is a massive recruiting win for the Americans. Embiid was a rarity, an international basketball free agent \u2014 since he had never been part of a senior national team and holds multiple passports, which meant he had multiple options.<\/p>\n

France \u2014 the reigning Olympic silver medallists, after losing to the US in the final at the Tokyo Games played in 2021 \u2014 had pitched Embiid on the prospects of joining a frontcourt that will likely include Rudy Gobert and Victor Wembanyama next summer, and until Embiid revealed a year ago that he had obtained US citizenship it was widely expected that he would play for the host nation at Paris 2024.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI know he met some of our players to discuss,\u201d France coach Vincent Collet said in October 2022. \u201cI think he should play with us. But we will see. We will respect his decision whatever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embiid was born in Cameroon and has held French citizenship. He has spent essentially his entire basketball life in the US; he went to high school in Florida, played college basketball at Kansas and has been with the 76ers for the entirety of his NBA career.<\/p>\n

The six-time NBA All-Star and five-time All-NBA selection has averaged 27.2 points in his career, winning his first scoring title by averaging a then-career-best 30.6 points in 2021-22 and winning his second straight scoring crown by averaging 33.1 points this past season.<\/p>\n

He won the MVP vote by a sizable margin, getting 73 of the 100 first-place votes to claim the crown over Denver's Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joel Embiid will wear red, white and blue at Paris 2024 \u2014 not rouge, blanc and bleu. The NBA's reigning MVP and scoring champion has […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":336655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336653"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336658,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336653\/revisions\/336658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/336655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}