Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr is taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to hearing about the NBA’s plans for next year’s 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
The Olympics were postponed and rescheduled for 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kerr is an assistant coach on Team USA, and he said he hasn’t spoken with head coach Gregg Popovich yet about what’s in store for next summer, according to Tim Reynolds of the AP.
“Believe it or not, I haven’t had a single conversation with Pop about that,” Kerr said, per Reynolds. “And the reason is because we don’t know. We’ve been talking almost daily now for the last couple of weeks and before that we were speaking once every few weeks. So, we haven’t even had a single conversation because there’s nothing to report.”
The qualifying tournaments are slated to begin in June 2021, and four countries will advance to the Olympics from those tourneys. The Olympics are set to begin July 23, but that whole timeline is poised to run into the next NBA season.
When news of the NBA’s resumption came out, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported a tentative date of Dec. 1 for the start of the 2020-21 season. After that, though, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported that the NBPA told players a Dec. 1 start for next season is “unlikely.”
Since uncertainty currently surrounds the NBA’s involvement with the Olympics, USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo and Popovich will wait until the plan for next season is clear “before mapping out an exact plan to build the roster,” per Reynolds.
Even if next season still begins in December, that means the regular season would probably end around May, per Reynolds. The league’s best would be gearing up for the playoffs with the Olympics around the corner.
“We’re just sort of waiting to hear what the news is,” Kerr said, per Reynolds. “If the news is good and we’re going to be able to take part, we’ll be ready to roll. And if not, we’ll deal with it later.”
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