Joel Embiid has committed to play for Team USA at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, CBS Sports' Bill Reiter confirmed Thursday. The reigning NBA MVP was also considering playing for France next summer. Embiid, a native of Cameroon, became a United States citizen in September 2022 and a French citizen a few months before that.
Last summer, Boris Diaw, the general manager of the French men's national team, said that Embiid wanted to play for France but couldn't because of a hand injury. Since then, there has been a quiet recruiting battle, which USA Basketball reportedly won on Thursday.
This week, Embiid and Team USA managing director Grant Hill had a meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado, the site of Philadelphia 76ers training camp, and on Thursday morning Embiid let Hill know that he had chosen the United States, according to ESPN. He made this decision because he wanted to help Team USA rebound from its fourth-place finish at the FIBA World Cup this summer, per ESPN.
Barring a series of injuries or changes of heart, the 2024 iteration of the team will be much older and more star-studded than the 2023 one. Embiid is joining a long list of players who have expressed their intentions to play at the Olympics, among them Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Devin Booker, Jayson Tatum and Kawhi Leonard.
Losing out on Embiid is undoubtedly a big blow for France, but it will still have a big addition: Victor Wembanyama, the top pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, has said he intends to play for his country at the Olympics.
