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Olympic tournament is filled with EuroLeague, EuroCup stars

Olympic tournament is filled with EuroLeague, EuroCup stars

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26 July 20245 Mins read

Igor Petrinovic

Euroleague.net

Olympic tournament is filled with EuroLeague, EuroCup stars

The main basketball event of the summer will tip off on Saturday at 11:00 CEST when Spain and Australia lock horns

The basketball tournament is one of the most anticipated events of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, and the 12-team showpiece will be filled with the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and BKT EuroCup stars from the past and present.

The men's Olympic basketball tournament features 42 players currently under contract with teams set to compete in the 2024-25 campaigns and a half-dozen more who played on EuroLeague and EuroCup floors last season.

The event will feature five reigning EuroLeague champs – Konstantinos Mitoglou, Panagiotis Kalaitzakis and Dimitris Moraitis of Greece, Juancho Hernangomez of Spain, and Mathias Lessort of France – who lifted the trophy this past May with Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens. The Greens nearly had a sixth, but center Kostas Antetokounmpo was a late scratch due to injury.

There are also 11 more players who competed at the 2024 Final Four wearing the jerseys of Real Madrid, Olympiacos Piraeus or Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul in Berlin.

Konstantinos Mitoglou (left) and Juancho Hernangomez (right) celebrate after Panathinaikos won the 2023-24 EuroLeague championship.

Of the 12 national teams in the French capital, Greece is the team that leads the way with a total of 10 players who are currently on EuroLeague (eight) or EuroCup (two) rosters. Spain comes next with nine such players, followed by Serbia and France, each with seven.

Among those teams, there are also four former EuroLeague MVPs: France's Nando De Colo (2016), Spain's Sergio Llull (2017) and Serbia's Vasilije Micic (2022) will be playing, while 2013 EuroLeague MVP and EuroLeague Legend Vassilis Spanoulis is the head coach of Greece.

Spanoulis is one of six head coaches – representing half of the teams in the Olympic tournament – who have left a significant mark in either the EuroLeague, EuroCup or both. Serbia's Svetislav Pesic led FC Barcelona to the EuroLeague crown in 2003, while another coaching mastermind, Spain head coach Sergio Scariolo, won the 2022 EuroCup with Virtus Segafredo Bologna.

Brazil tactician Aleksandar Petrovic was the 2010-11 EuroCup Coach of the Year, while France's Vincent Collet and Germany's and FC Bayern Munich's Gordon Herbert have a combined eight seasons coaching in the EuroLeague and 13 in the EuroCup.