The Boomers may yet field their best-ever team at next year’s Olympics with news that the NBA plans to start their next season on December 22, potentially ending a timing clash between the worldwide sporting spectacle and the world’s greatest basketball league.
It is understood that the NBA is leaning towards the December date and a 72-game season so the following 2021/22 season can begin by the usual October start date.
A January start was originally touted which would have seen the season end in September – after the Olympics – in the hope of bringing spectators back to games, but with a “third wave” of coronavirus hitting the states, those plans seem unlikely.
An earlier start and shortened NBA season would be a god-send for the Boomers, who stood to be one of the worst impacted teams in any tournament without NBA participation with nine Australians currently in the league.
If the 2020/21 season does start on December 22nd as suggested, the Boomers could have access to players such as Ben Simmons, Dante Exum, Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, Aron Baynes, Ryan Broekhoff, Josh Green and Thon Maker, elevating the team to a medal contender.
Questions remain over who would coach that team, with Basketball Australia now interviewing for the position Brett Brown has unexpectedly left with an eye not only to the Tokyo Olympics, but the FIBA World Cup in the Philippines in 2023.
Candidates include former Boomers’ coach Brian Goorjian, current Sydney King’s head coach Will Weaver, Perth Wildcat’s Trevor Gleeson and Melbourne United’s Dean Vickerman.
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Jarrad Hurley's professional basketball aspirations led him to the dizzying heights of the Adelaide social league circuit. After an epiphany that his hoop dreams would go unrealised, he put the ball down and picked up a pen. Jarrad lives vicariously through the successes of Australian basketball, is a mad 36ers fanatic, and might just cry if the Boomers ever medal.