I can’t believe NBA would give two hoots about the Olympics. Let the college kids play.
What about the other 37 countries represented in the NBA?
Also I don't think it's the NBA per se, but players from all countries that want to represent their country. Something most Americans are meh about unfortunately. People from other countries tend to view representing your country as the pinnacle but not us.
That is a peculiar mindset that I have noted. Heaps of American NBA players seem very meh about representing their country. Even Ben Simmons, whose dad is American and who spent his HS sophomore year onward in America, has taken on this attitude.
For most sportsmen and women down here that don't play our national footy code representing the country is the highest honour
That's what I noticed when I lived there, and same when I lived in London - the Aussies and the British (or English I guess) really saw national representation in soccer, rugby or cricket as the pinnacle of their sporting careers, ahead of winning a championship or winning MVPs. I guess here in the US our domestic competitions (NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB) are widely regarded as the best competition of the sports we play and the international competition (Olympics, FIBA World Cup, World Baseball Cup or whatever it's called) are seen as Mickey Mouse tournaments. It's only because the US was beaten in the Olympics in 2004 and has been beaten in FIBA events that players started taking the Olympics seriously.
But a lot of fans still aren't really sold...you could see by
the lukewarm response here to the FIBA World Cup last year, a lot of people here didn't even want Jaylen, Jayson, Kemba and Smart to play because they might be injured for the NBA season. The FIFA World Cup is different...MLS is far from being the best soccer league around so it's obvious that playing in the World Cup is the pinnacle for an American soccer player. But in baseball and hockey the MLB and NHL are seen as the best, and as for NFL, well we're the only ones who play it