Yahoo Movies LeBron James not ruling out return to Team USA at 2020 Tokyo Olympics
As expected, LeBron James will not play for USA Basketball at the FIBA World Cup in China this summer, but the four-time NBA MVP remains open to returning to the men’s national team for a fourth run at an Olympic medal in the summer of 2020.
“Yeah, that’s a possibility,” James told The Athletic’s Joe Vardon of potentially playing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. “It depends on how I feel. I love the Olympics.”
James has not played for Team USA since winning gold at the London Olympics in 2012, opting to take the summer of 2016 off after leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a championship. He also won a gold medal in 2008 and a bronze medal in 2004.
James has also not played for Team USA outside the Olympics since 2007, when a mission to restore the program’s glory began at the FIBA Americas Championship.
Still, with the Los Angeles Lakers failing to miss the playoffs for a sixth straight season, there was speculation that an additional few months of rest might afford James the opportunity to participate in the World Cup this summer, especially considering his impact on branding efforts by both the NBA and Nike in China.
After all, James hinted at a return to USA Basketball when the organization officially named Gregg Popovich as Mike Krzyzewski’s coaching successor in January 2017.
"It factors a lot," James said then of Popovich’s influence on his potential return. "I've said that before. He's just a great mastermind of the game of basketball."
James did not participate in Team USA’s first camp under Popovich this past July, but national team managing director Jerry Colangelo told USA Today at the time, “Oh, I think there’s definitely a chance that he’s going to take part” in 2019 or 2020.
Any return, though, will not come until at least next summer.
“I love everything about Pop, obviously,” James, who begins production on his “Space Jam 2” film in June, told Vardon, “but this is not a good summer for me.”
The Lakers announced over the weekend that, at their insistence, James will miss the rest of this NBA season in order to rest a groin injury that has lingered since Christmas. He played a career-low 55 games and 1,937 minutes this season, missing the playoffs for the first time since his second year in the league.
James will turn 35 years old in December, and his health next season — along with the Lakers’ success — will surely impact his availability for the 2020 Tokyo Games.
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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
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