INDIANAPOLIS — Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon was included in a USA Basketball pool of 41 finalists for the 2024 Olympic team released Tuesday.
Twelve players on the list will make the final roster for the Paris Summer Games, which take place between July 26 and Aug. 11. The final roster will be announced “later in 2024,” according to USA Basketball.
The U.S. team coached by Steve Kerr at the 2023 FIBA World Cup didn’t bring home any hardware, losing to Canada in the bronze medal game. But marquee NBA players who sat out the tournament such as Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Steph Curry have all publicly expressed interest in competing at the Olympics. Defending league MVP Joel Embiid has also committed to the U.S. team over France and Cameroon.
The 41-man list of finalists includes 28 players who have previously competed for the U.S. at the Olympics and/or World Cup. Gordon has not — but he was a junior national team member from 2010 to ’12.
A fan favorite in Denver, Gordon was acquired in a blockbuster March 2021 trade between the Nuggets and Magic that sent Gary Harris, R.J. Hampton and a 2025 protected first-round pick to Orlando. By simplifying his game and sacrificing his former role as an Orlando star, Gordon became a cornerstone piece on the 2022-23 Nuggets team that won the NBA championship for the first time in franchise history. He did so by rim-running, defending and playing more off-ball than he was accustomed to, developing an unshakable chemistry with Nikola Jokic.
“We all feel that Aaron is fully deserving of that,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “When putting together a team like that, yeah, you need talent, but you also need guys that are willing to check their ego at the door and do whatever it takes: to guard the other team’s best player, to rebound, to defend, to run the floor, to set a screen. And I think Aaron Gordon would be a great fit for any team because he’s talented, he has a great attitude, he’s tough and he’s proven that he’s a winner. And he can win on the highest level at the biggest stage.”
Since the start of last season, Gordon has averaged 15.4 points per game on 55.6% shooting from the field, as well as 6.6 rebounds and three assists. Defensively, he guarded a gauntlet of Karl-Anthony Towns, Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Jimmy Butler during the Nuggets’ 2023 playoff run.
Jokic, Jamal Murray and Vlatko Cancar are Denver’s other players who could compete at the Olympics, all for different countries.
Jokic last suited up for Serbia’s national team at EuroBasket 2022, choosing not to play in the World Cup last summer after Denver’s season ran 20 extra games into mid-June. For similar reasons, Murray withdrew from Canada’s training camp before the World Cup. The Nuggets point guard said as recently as December that he still hopes to play at the Olympics. Cancar tore his left ACL during an international friendly between Slovenia and Greece last summer, dashing his hopes of competing for Slovenia at the World Cup and sidelining him for the current Nuggets season.
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