Home Basketball Doncic or Antetokounmpo, there’s only room for one in the Olympics. Paris 2024: Slovenia vs. Greece enters FIBA ​​​​Olympic qualifiers

Doncic or Antetokounmpo, there’s only room for one in the Olympics. Paris 2024: Slovenia vs. Greece enters FIBA ​​​​Olympic qualifiers

Basketball — 07/05/2024

Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo, two of the NBA’s top stars, want to participate in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. But there is only room for one of them to become a potential opponent of LeBron James, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Victor Wembanyama in France.

Luka Doncic Giannis Antetokounmpo Hy Lạp Slovenia

Doncic’s Slovenia and Antetokounmpo’s Greece are competing in the Pre-Olympics, after failing to have a stellar campaign in the last World Cup (Slovenia finished seventh and Greece 15th). And the draw decided the two teams would fall into the same four-team tournament taking place this week, where only the winner of each team will get an Olympic ticket.

The tournament in Piraeus, in Greece, now has the locals as favorites after their wins over the Dominican Republic (109-82) and Egypt (93-71). In the other group, Slovenia’s defeat by Croatia with a score of 108-92 was a surprise, leaving the fourth-placed team at the Tokyo Olympics second. Slovenia today defeated New Zealand (the team that defeated Croatia yesterday) with a score of 104-78, but needs 3 more points to lead Croatia in the group.

So there’s Slovenia vs. Greece this Saturday, July 6 enters the semi-finals. Doncic vs. Antetokounmpo. Luka vs. Giannis, two players who have been part of the NBA’s ideal four over the past five seasons and who has appeared in two of the last four league Finals.

They are not the only NBA players participating in these meetings: there is also Vlatko Cancar, a player of the Denver Nuggets, on the Slovenian team on which another former NBA player, Zoran Dragic, plays. Greece has several former NBA players: Nick Calathes, Kostas Antetokounmpo, Kostas Papanikolaou and Georgios Papagiannis.

Basketball Sphere on X: "The game everyone is looking forward to Slovenia and Luka Doncic Greece and Giannis Antetokounmpo Your predictions? #FIBAOQT https://t.co/NZtVt6VRgC" / X

Victory in this match will not be enough for the winners: they will have to qualify for the Olympic Games on Sunday, facing off in the Pre-Olympic final against the winner of the Croatia clash (vs. Dario Saric and Ivica Zubac) and the winning team. Dominican Republic (with Chris Duarte).

Doncic, European champion with Slovenia in 2017, already has Olympic experience in Tokyo 2020: after winning the Pre-Olympic title, he led his team to fourth place and was selected in the ideal quintet of the tournament.

Antetokounmpo, now 29 years old, has yet to win glory with Greece: he failed at World Cup 2014, EuroBasket 2015, World Cup 2019 and EuroBasket 2022, the four major tournaments in which he participated. He could not even take Greece to the Olympic Games: his team has not played the most important tournament since Beijing 2008. With Giannis, they lost in the semi-finals of the Rio 2016 Olympic Qualifiers. None he, they lost the final of Tokyo 2020. Olympic qualifying.