After the summer league is over, the only way to watch live men's basketball for the rest of the summer is to tune in to the 2024 Paris Olympics. The Paris Olympics will begin on Friday, July 26, and continue up until Sunday, August 11. The basketball portion of the Olympics will take place from Saturday, July 27, to Saturday, August 10.
Which Sacramento Kings players Will Be Playing In The Olympics?
In total, there will be 12 teams competing in the Olympics. But how many of those teams house members of the Sacramento Kings?
The home team, Team USA, does not have any members of the Kings. In fact, there is only one team that rosters any current Kings. That team is Team Canada, which features Trey Lyles on their team. This will be Lyles' first time in the Olympics. As we've discussed before, it'll be worth monitoring the performance of Lyles as he could be the biggest x-factor of our team heading into next season.
For those wondering, the other NBA players on Team Canada are Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, RJ Barrett, Khem Birch, Dillon Brooks, Luguentz Dort, Jamal Murray, Andrew Nembhard, Dwight Powell, and Kelly Olynyk.
Former Sacramento Kings Players Competing In The Olympics
While there is only one current member of the Kings participating in the Olympics, there are four former Kings who will be in the games. Those players are Tyrese Haliburton (Team USA), Bogdan Bogdanovic (Team Serbia), Matthew Delladova (Team Australia), and Filip Petrušev (Serbia).
The latter two, Delladova and Petrušev, are no longer in the NBA. Fun fact: Petrušev only played three games in the NBA (two with the Kings).
Current Sacramento Kings Players With Olympic Experience
The Kings' double-double king (see what I did there), Domantas Sabonis, was going to be in the Olympics, but his team, Team Lithuania, was eliminated by Puerto Rico during qualifiers. Before this year, Sabonis had also competed in the Rio Games in 2016.
Outside of Sabonis and Lyles, the only other Kings player with Olympic experience is DeMar DeRozan (Team USA), who also played in the Olympics in 2016.
Earlier this year, it was said that De'Aaron Fox was on the 41-man list of players in the running to be a part of the 2024 iteration of Team USA. Lastly, Keegan Murray was chosen to be on the 2024 USA Men's Select Team.