Olympics 2024: Tokyo pain to drive Boomers star Josh Giddey to new high at Paris Games
The pain of missing Australia’s historic bronze medal-winning squad still burns Boomers young gun Josh Giddey, but the rising NBA star will use the setback as motivation to perform at Paris.
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The pain of missing out on Australia’s historic bronze medal-winning squad still burns Boomers young gun Josh Giddey, but the rising NBA star says he will use the setback as “fuel to the fire” to perform strongly at the Paris Olympics.
Giddey doesn’t mind admitting he was a little heartbroken when Brian Goorjian cut him as the final player jettisoned from the Tokyo Olympics squad.
His mood didn’t improve when that Goorjian-led side went on to win bronze in a hail of national acclaim as the first Boomers outfit to take home an Olympic medal of any colour in six decades.
Giddey isn’t holding any grudges, though.
Australia’s brightest male basketball talent is using the rejection as motivation to lead the next generation of Boomers to sustained success.
He is determined to use the Games as a platform to reboot his career and confidence following his most challenging NBA season that ended in an inevitable trade from the OKC Thunder to the Chicago Bulls.
As Giddey reveals in an exclusive interview, the decision to brush him from Tokyo will allow him to arrive at the Paris Olympics as a player entering his peak.
Not a raw 18-year-old distracted by the coming draft process with so much on his plate – and so much to learn.
The battle-hardened NBA star is already plotting a three-Olympics plan that will culminate with a home Olympics in Brisbane in 2032.
“It’s tough when you get cut. You think the world has ended and everything has turned into not-very-good-stuff. But I look back at it now and it was probably the best thing for me,” Giddey said.
“I am glad it happened and now I have my chance three years later.
“Unfortunately I didn’t get to go to Tokyo and I was 18 at the time. I was pretty young. It would have been cool to be at and that adds fuel to the fire. This will be my first one in Paris.
“It was right around the draft time for the NBA and I was still in New York and then I flew to Oklahoma and the Olympics was still happening, so I was trying to watch as much as I could
“The time difference was tough, it was 2am and 3am for the games in Tokyo. So yeah, it’s tough to not be a part of but very proud of the guys and what they did for basketball in Australia.”
Goorjian did explain to Giddey why he missed the cut in Tokyo. Fellow NBA star Josh Green had performed better in the mini-camp leading into the Olympics and the coach knew the draft process would be distracting.
Three years on there is no more uncertainty.
If Patty Mills and Joe Ingles simply dragged Australia to Tokyo bronze – Mills’ 42 points against Slovenia were the 10th-highest in Olympic men’s basketball history – the young turks are ready to take over the team.
Goorjian has already flagged it and Giddey could sense the changing of the guard at last year’s World Cup, also in Tokyo.
Giddey was named the FIBA Basketball World Cup Rising Star, averaging 19.4 points, five rebounds and six assists, but the Boomers couldn’t even make it out of their pool.
The Boomers team that plays a Melbourne series against China from July 2-5 before a whittled-down 12-man squad plays an Abu Dhabi series on July 15-16 has been handed over to Australia’s NBA young guns.
They include Giddey, Dallas Mavericks players Green and Dante Exum, fellow NBA improvers Dyson Daniels (New Orleans) and Matisse Thybulle/Duop Reath (Portland Trail Blazers) and Houston Rockets centre Jock Landale.
Tokyo bronze medallists Mills, Ingles, Matthew Dellavedova, Nick Kay and Chris Goulding are in the current squad, but the baton has been passed.
“Gold is the benchmark, it is what we are setting our sight on and anything less I don’t think guys will be overly satisfied with,” Giddey said.
“We have got a great team. Basketball is as good as it’s ever been in Australia. It’s a pretty similar crew to what we had at the World Cup.
“We have got young guys coming through, older guys at the back end of their careers.
“That was one part we struggled with in Japan for the World Cup.
“It probably was a little bit of a disconnect between young and old, it was a completely new team they put together and we will be better this time around for it.
“We get into camp for 10 days, we will have a good preparation, we go to Abu Dhabi and play a bunch of games, we will be ready but we will learn from that World Cup experience and it will be better for us going into Paris.”
Goorjian believes the Olympics has come at the perfect time for Giddey to regain his confidence after a challenging NBA season.
Goorjian says the FIBA game, which is more physical and team-focused compared to the NBA, suits the young guard’s selfless game.
He credits this mindset to Giddey’s junior days in the Melbourne Tigers’ system under the legendary Lindsay and Andrew Gaze and alongside his father.
“In the international game Josh knows how to be a moving target, he knows how to read the defence because he has grown up in the Tigers’ shuffle style of play through his dad, Warrick,” Goorjian said.
“Like Andrew Gaze, he knows how to cut. But in the past NBA season at OKC (Oklahoma City Thunder), the guys off the ball weren’t guarding him and they just had him off the ball.
“He was just standing in the short corner and other guys were making plays.
“It will be different for the Boomers. He will have the ball in his hands a lot and he is very good at playing off on-ball screens and he is a great passer.
“The other aspect is to keep him moving and make sure he isn’t a stationary target. So, the Olympics are going to be really good for Giddey.”
Giddey is talking about basketball at the MCG as he watches his beloved Hawthorn beat Dustin Martin’s 300th game on June 15.
He professes his love for Oklahoma City, despite his rocky finish to the playoffs.
And yet six days after this interview his first real taste of the NBA merry-go-round arrives as the Thunder trade him to the Chicago Bulls.
So the Olympics will be a chance to show Bulls fans what he has in store – and show the Thunder what they are about to miss.
Australia won Tokyo bronze against an uncharacteristically quiet Luke Doncic as the Slovenia and Dallas Mavericks star got into early foul trouble.
While the Australian pool is not yet settled, Canada is one certain opponent after Giddey’s former OKC teammate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led his team onto the podium.
His NBA exploits have grown since then, while the US team is stacked with Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Joel Embiid and NBA champions Jayson Tatum and Jrue Holiday.
Call it blind faith or the impetuosity of youth, but Giddey says the US is beatable if they do end up meeting in the medal rounds.
“Yeah, it’s no secret they have got a great team. They are assembling all their veterans and best players to come back,” he says. “We are confident we can go against everyone in the world. We trust our talent and believe in each other.
“When you put the jerseys on and play it doesn’t matter who is in front of you.
“You go out there and play basketball and when the 40 minutes are up, if you do what you need to do, the result will take care of itself.”
The bronze medal winning Tokyo games were played in a bizarre Covid bubble, but Giddey cannot help but look ahead to the glorious possibilities in incredible Olympic cities ahead as he eyes his potential finishing target of Brisbane 2032.
“It’s very exciting, as a kid you grow up wanting to play in the Olympics and dreaming about playing in them. There are some pretty cool places coming ,” he says.
“We are in Paris and then LA and then in Brisbane so they are three good Olympics location-wise.
“(Brisbane) is going to be unbelievable. I am going to be 30 years old at that point, so I will be right in the prime of my career. Any time we play a game on home soil is great, the crowds always turn up. They don’t get to see the Boomers play together a lot in Australia so to have an Olympic games here is going to be unbelievable. It is still a long way away but we are very excited for it to play in front of our home fans.”
First, Paris is calling for Giddey as he looks to lead the Boomers to a medal in his maiden Olympic appearance.
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