Nikola Jokic, Serbia to face off against Team USA at 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games
By Ben Handler
The draw for group play in Men’s Basketball at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris took place on Tuesday and it will impact multiple Nuggets; most notably Nikola Jokic. The likely NBA MVP leads his home country of Serbia into the games this summer, but they’ll have their work cut out for them.
The drawing was done in Switzerland by international basketball legends Penny Taylor and Carmelo Anthony. The 12 qualified countries were drawn into three different groups of four. Each country will play the three other teams in their group, with the top 2 teams from each group, plus two wild cards advancing to the quarterfinals.
The groups are as follows
Group A
Australia
Greece
Canada
Spain
Group B
France
Germany
Japan
Latvia
Group C
Serbia
South Sudan
Puerto Rico
United States
The most interesting thing that jumps out is that Jokic and Serbia will have to face Team USA in the group stage. That should be an incredible basketball spectacle on the world stage. The loser of that one should still have a very good chance to make it to the quarterfinals though.
The other Nuggets star who will be playing in the Olympics is Jamal Murray, who will be leading Team Canada along with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Thunder. The Canadian National Team has come a long way in recent years and has high hopes for these games.
But they’ve been placed in a very tough group with other world powers Australia, Greece, and Spain.
There won’t be any easy games in that group, but still, with the roster Canada is sending to the Olympics, it would be a huge disappointment if they didn’t make it out of the group stage.
Ultimately, this should be a fun competition and a great chance to see NBA players in a setting that is very different from the NBA. The basketball will be good, as will the storylines. Nuggets fans may even be treated to an elimination game featuring Jamal Murray against Nikola Jokic.
But don’t worry Nuggets fans, you’ve got several months and hopefully a long playoff run to figure out who you’ll be rooting for in that one.