In this week’s SB Nation Reacts survey, we’ll focus on the Washington Wizards again. As you know, the Washington Mystics sent three players to the FIBA Women’s World Cup in Germany this week. Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen will play for the United States while Alicia Florez will play for Spain. Shakira Austin played for Team USA in the 2022 FIBA Women’s World Cup.
The Wizards have had a fair number of players represent other countries over the past two decades. Nene played for Brazil. Kevin Seraphin,
Alex Sarr and Bilal Coulibaly represented or represent France as Wizards. And before he became an All-Star for the Portland Trail Blazers, Deni Avdija was a Wizards and also played for Israel. But no active Wizards player has ever played for the United States on an Olympic team. In fact, it’s never happened before.
(So Russell Westbrook doesn’t count. And neither does Bradley Beal, though he was initially part of the 2020 Olympic team in Tokyo before …. health came along.)
The Wizards had only one player in the FIBA World Cup for Team USA, Antawn Jamison in 2006.
Why haven’t Wizards players been part of the Team USA pipeline? Well, in short, none were good enough or in good enough graces with the USA Basketball men’s national team’s brass. On top of that, the Wizards haven’t been an NBA contender in the 21st century, which further exacerbates their drought.
So, with AJ Dybantsa now as the Wizards’ next franchise player, do you think … maybe, just maybe … a Wizards player COULD be on Team USA for the FIBA World Cup or Olympics in the relatively not-too-distant future? Let us know in the poll below!
