With the coronavirus pandemic having resulted in a lengthy shutdown and subsequent delay in the NBA schedule, league commissioner Adam Silver stated that the NBA does not expect its players to participate in the 2021 Olympic Games taking place in Tokyo next summer.
With the new NBA season set to commence in January, the full schedule, including playoff games, is not expected to be completed by the time that the Tokyo Olympics begin. “I think it’s unlikely, at the end of the day, that, if we start late, we would stop for the Olympics,” Silver confirmed following Game 2 of the 2020 NBA Finals.
“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.” Prior to the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Olympic Games was scheduled to commence during the NBA offseason, thereby ensuring that players were available to participate in the global sporting event.
Since the Olympic Committee’s rules changed in 1989, NBA players have featured in each edition of the Olympics’ basketball tournament. The United States has won the gold medal in every Olympic tournament expect for Athens in 2004, when Argentina won the gold and the US won the bronze medal playoff.
