PARIS — The NBA and WNBA stars hyped to compete in the Olympics this summer will be playing their first week more than 100 miles away from the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum, despite intense lobbying from the sport’s leaders to stay closer to the global tourist destination.
In a twist that has confounded basketball’s leaders and even bucked the wishes of city officials, badminton took precedence to stay in Paris over basketball, which was bumped 136 miles north to Lille in a displacement of several major events. Now, top national basketball teams are planning for the men’s and women’s Olympic tournaments while feeling shorted by a bureaucratic shuffle that moved their competitions for gymnastics while badminton stayed untouched in an arena specifically built for hoops.
And because of scheduling and distance, some of the world’s biggest basketball stars, including French star Victor Wembanyama, could miss the grandiose opening ceremony, a boat parade down the River Seine.
“Wait, for real?” Kevin Durant, the most decorated American Olympic basketball player ever, said when told that the top NBA and WNBA players would be competing in Lille, closer to the beaches of Dunkirk than the Champs Élysées.
Durant told his NBA rivals of his intention to play at the Paris…
