North Charlotte Today

For the first time in 20 years, the upcoming Summer Olympics will open in Paris with two players from the Charlotte Hornets representing their respective national teams.

Australian-born forward Josh Green, officially acquired by the Hornets from Dallas earlier this month, will be making his second Olympic appearance. Previously, the 23-year-old former Maverick won bronze at the 2020 (2021) Tokyo Games, marking Australia’s first-ever medal in men’s basketball at either the FIBA World Cup or Olympics. Meanwhile, 30-year-old point guard Vasilije Micić is making his Olympic debut for Serbia, which did not qualify back in 2021.

Including Green, eight of the 12 players on Australia’s Olympic team were on an NBA roster this past season: Dyson Daniels, Danté Exum, Josh Giddey, Joe Ingles, Jock Landale, Patty Mills, and Duop Reath. Starting with the 1972 Munich Games, Australia has qualified for 14 straight Olympics and reached the knockout round in each of the past four. The Boomers finished a relatively disappointing 10th at the 2023 FIBA World Cup after coming in fourth in 2019.

Micić joins three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić, Bogdan Bogdanović, and Nikola Jović as active NBA players on Serbia’s roster. Serbia took home silver at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and EuroBasket 2017 and placed well at the recent FIBA World Cup. Following Yugoslavia's breakup in the 1990s, Serbia (then known as Serbia and Montenegro) won silver at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and qualified again in both 2000 and 2004 before missing three of the next four Olympics.

Green and Micić will be among six active Charlotte players to participate at a Summer Olympics. They join France’s Nic Batum (2016), Emeka Okafor of the United States (2004), Predrag Drobnjak of Serbia and Montenegro (2004), who was traded right after those games began; and Vlade Divac (1996). Of these four athletes, Okafor earned a bronze medal while Divac secured silver.

Unlike other competitions such as FIBA World Cup or EuroBasket that have broader participation pools, only twelve teams qualify for Olympic basketball. Half of this year's field – including reigning champions like Team USA – participated in Tokyo. Teams like Greece are ending significant hiatuses from Olympic competition while South Sudan makes its debut.

Australia has been placed into Group A alongside Spain (ranked second by FIBA), Canada (seventh), and Greece (fourteenth). Serbia will compete in Group C with top-ranked United States along with Puerto Rico (sixteenth) and South Sudan (thirty-third). All group play games will occur at Stade Pierre-Mauroy near Lille before moving to Paris’ Accor Arena for knockout rounds starting August sixth.

"As far as preparation," explained Green during a Zoom call from Abu Dhabi on July twelfth,"we just need to make sure we’re playing our brand of basketball... I feel like our chemistry is very high." He added that despite being part of a tough pool he believes they can advance far enough to potentially win another medal.

The schedule for key group matches involving Australia includes:

- Saturday July twenty-seventh against Spain

- Tuesday July thirtieth versus Canada

- Friday August second facing Greece

Serbia's key matches include:

- Sunday July twenty-eighth against Team USA

- Wednesday July thirty-first versus Puerto Rico

- Saturday August third facing South Sudan

As global interest grows around basketball competitions so does anticipation over who might clinch Olympic gold this year—a prospect made more exciting for Charlotte fans watching their own Josh Green & Vasilije Micić competing internationally.

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