The Boston Celtics has already won its first two games and needs two more wins in the best-of-seven NBA Finals. Dominican Al Horford is on that team. A former player on the Dominican national basketball team, in recent years he has declined competing for the Dominican national basketball team to concentrate on winning the NBA title.
Game three and four of the NBA finals are scheduled for Wednesday, 12 June and Friday, 14 June 2024 in Dallas, Texas.
If Boston wins the NBA championship, then Al Horford could set sight next on being an Olympian with the Dominican national team.
Chris Duarte, who plays for the Sacramento Kings in the NBA Western Conference, has said he is available to join the team. Minnesota Timberwolves’s start player, Karl Anthony Towns has had a stellar role on the Dominican national team in the past and is most likely to be available. Karl Anthony Towns and Al Horford played at the same time on the Dominican team.
Duarte showed up for the mini-camp with players Andrés Feliz and Jean Montero to show his commitment to the team. Duarte has played before for the team. The Dominican national team is aiming to qualify for the Olympic Games during the pre-qualifying tournament to be held in Greece from 2 to 7 July 2024 (Dominican time).
Likewise, Nestor (Che) García recently announced his return to coaching the team after a stint with a Middle East team. He has to select the members of the team that will play in the qualifier.
There are four remaining places in the 12-team Paris 2024 Olympic field and these are reserved for the winners of the upcoming FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments.
Twenty-four teams in six-team groups are participating in four Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, that are taking place from 2-7 July 2024.
The highest-placed team for each region of Africa, Americas, and Asia/Oceania (three teams), after the eight teams directly qualified, will be selected before the 16 highest-placed teams from the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 and five teams through the pre-qualifying tournaments. The winner of each tournament will qualify for the Men’s Olympic Basketball Tournament.
The DR (FIBA ranked 19th) is playing Greece (14th), Slovenia (11th), Croatia (30th), New Zealand (21st) and Egypt (ranked 20th) for a slot. The DR will play Egypt on 2 July and Greece on 3 July in Piraeus, Greece in the team’s last chance at getting into the 2024 Olympics.
The four winners of the last qualifier tournaments will reach the Paris Olympics, where they’ll join France, World Cup champion Germany, Serbia, Canada, the US, Australia, Japan and South Sudan in the Olympic field.
The next Olympic Games will take place in Paris in 2024 from July 26 to August 11.
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11 June 2024