Article Contents

Basketball has been one of the most high-profile events at the Olympic Games since Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird joined forces on the Dream Team more than 30 years ago.

Article Contents

Still, megastars like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Victor Wembanyama, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic and Canada’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — plus many of the world’s best female players — are playing large parts of this year’s basketball tournament, which is more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Paris.

The athletes who wanted to attend the opening ceremony (including James and Antetokounmpo, who served as flag bearers) had to spend hours on buses or trains to get to Paris.

Some countries, including Canada, chose to skip opening festivities because they were playing the next day and prioritizing preparations.

That might not have been necessary if the basketball tournament had gone ahead as originally intended.

Article Contents

We apologize, but this video failed to load.

Play Video

Basketball was banished to northern Lille, near France’s border with Belgium, while badminton remained stuck in the City of Light. That’s despite Paris having a basketball stadium, Accor Arena, for the action and Lille’s vast soccer stadium needing air conditioning in the final stages, leading to talks between NBA commissioner Adam Silver and French President Emmanuel Macron, according to Athletic.

Basketball was moved because pandemic-related cost increases disrupted construction of a new swimming venue and forced the rescheduling of some events, the report said. That included moving gymnastics to Accor Arena and sending basketball to Lille until the medal round, after which the games will be played at the Paris venue.

Article Contents

While some events, such as football, take place elsewhere in France, it is unthinkable that the first phase of the basketball tournament would not take place in Paris.

In addition, a brand new NBA-quality arena recently opened in Paris, Adidas Arena, but it hosts badminton and rhythmic gymnastics.

Andreas Zagklis, FIBA’s secretary general, told Athletic that the new arena had been requested by FIBA ​​for the tournament, but “it was not offered to us.” The report notes that officials lobbied to relocate badminton, but were unsuccessful.

Team USA has booked a luxury hotel in Paris for the duration of the tournament, even though the teams will only play a small portion of their games there, even though they are competing for gold.

Article Contents