A 22-man Australian Boomers squad has been named in preparation for the 2024 Paris Olympics, Basketball Australia announced on Thursday.
The extended squad - which features 10 NBA players - will be refined ahead of the Boomers' pre-Olympics training camp in July, before the Games begin later that month.
The entire team from the Boomers' short-lived 2023 FIBA World Cup campaign has been selected to the squad, led by the country's NBA cohort of Josh Giddey, Josh Green, Danté Exum, Duop Reath, Patty Mills, Joe Ingles, Jock Landale, Dyson Daniels, Matisse Thybulle, and Jack White.
Chris Goulding and Nick Kay, who were also members of the most recent World Cup team, have been selected to this extended squad.
Ben Simmons was not named in the squad, with the Brooklyn Nets forward undergoing back surgery in March, ruling him out of selection for these Olympics.
The NBL contingent is highlighted by a duo from the championship-winning Tasmania JackJumpers - Championship Series MVP, Jack McVeigh; and Will Magnay - along with Goulding, Xavier Cooks, Matthew Dellavedova, Dejan Vasiljevic, Sam Froling, Keanu Pinder, Will McDowell-White, and Rocco Zikarsky.
The newest inclusion to the Boomers' program is Johnny Furphy, the 19-year-old wing out of Melbourne who just completed an impressive college season at Kansas. Furphy, who's part of the extended squad, is currently No. 28 on ESPN's 2024 NBA Mock Draft.
The Boomers are coming off a 10th place finish at the 2023 FIBA World Cup and secured an automatic qualification for the Olympics as the highest-finishing team from the Oceania region. Goorjian remains at the helm for the Boomers for the Paris Olympics, having led the program to its first medal in a major international tournament when the team won bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Matt Nielsen, Adam Caporn, and David Patrick will return as assistant coaches under Goorjian, while Jacob Chance will once again serve as Head of Video and Analytics.
The Boomers have been drawn into Group A for the Paris Olympics. As of now, Canada is the only team confirmed in the group, with the other two nations to be determined through separate Olympics Qualifying Tournaments. Australia and Canada will be joined by one of: Greece, Slovenia, New Zealand, Croatia, Egypt or the Dominican Republic; and Spain, Lebanon, Angola, Finland, Poland, or the Bahamas.
"I think we have maybe the most difficult pool in Boomers history," Goorjian told ESPN.
"There's not an Angola, Iran... no 'easy win'. If you say we're going to Paris to gold medal, anyone in our group can do that. It's Greece with the 'Freak', or Slovenia, Spain, Canada; they're all thinking that. Anyone can."
The Boomers' coaching staff has used the personnel available to them to guide the style of play they'll lean into; one Goorjian referred to as 'Aussie Ball'.
"The focus is playing at tempo, at pace, downhill," Goorjian said.
"If you look at the NBL and look at the NBA, you play the game in the first eight seconds of the clock. If you don't have it, you go to the second side and you have a simple concept on the move, playing downhill. The third aspect would be - and I put that where a lot of the Europeans play - playing your sets and getting that ball through hands in the half-court and running what I call 'the scout'.
"In the NBL and NBA, they stay away from the third box as much as possible; if you have 100 possessions, you're playing 85 of them in those first two boxes. I'm not saying we're not gonna pass the ball and people aren't gonna touch it, but we're certainly gonna be - with Giddey and the wings that we have, and the size we have, and the preparation time we have - committed to a certain style of play."
Goorjian pointed to shooting and size as elements he felt the Boomers were missing in their underwhelming World Cup campaign, leading to the inclusion of the likes of McVeigh, Magnay, and Vasiljevic.
The expectation is that, realistically, only one of Goulding and Vasiljevic would be selected for the final Olympic team, while McVeigh is coming off a Championship Series MVP and brings a style of play the squad doesn't necessarily have at the four-spot.
"Over the course of time, you bring guys in and some of them are just excited to just come and have a wonderful experience," Goorjian said.
"Others are: look at me, I'm f--kin' good enough. I think what we're gonna get from this group, from the guys we've brought in here, is that. What I saw this year in their domestic competitions is: look at me, I'm here to make the f--kin' team, you better keep your eyes on me. Credit to 'em."
The two youngest players in the squad, Furphy and Zikarsky, have earned their way into this selection for different reasons. Furphy emerged as a legitimate first-round NBA prospect over his freshman season at Kansas, while Zikarsky continued to show how high his ceiling could be.
While there's an element of including them in the squad and potentially bringing them into camp as a way to give them experience alongside Australia's seasoned players, Goorjian didn't rule out their respective skillsets filling a need for his group.
"On Furphy, I just think it's really important that he's brought into the Boomers program and culture," Goorjian said. "The worst case is he gets to see the Boomers and be around this group, but, also, we need a shooter. He does that.
"Rocco is like an upcoming Bogut. He's probably a year earlier than Bogut was when he went to Athens. Any chance I can in his evolution to have him around is huge... There's nothing like him. He's 7'4, and he's co-ordinated. I talk about some of our gaps after the World Cup, with the shooting and adding McVeigh [to the squad]... rim protection [too], a presence around the rim, we didn't have it. Rocco is that.
"Touching those guys is one thing, but both of them, in their position, have a skill.
"When you pick your nine, with this group; those last three, you never know what it is. Is it a rim protector? Is it defence? Is it a chemistry guy? Is it, we have everything covered so let's give a young guy a piece of this so they're ready for the next one?"
Goorjian said he's hoping to cut this squad of 22 down to "17 or 18" going into training camp, which will be held in Melbourne either at the end of June or start of July. There have also been talks about a potential drop-in camp earlier in June in Huntington Beach, California - or even in Melbourne or Sydney - before the official camp, imitating the environment the Boomers had in Irvine, California going into the Tokyo Olympics campaign.
The Boomers' program is also in advanced talks to play a pair of exhibition games -- against Team USA and Serbia -- in Abu Dhabi ahead of the Paris Olympics, ESPN reported in December. In the proposed showcase, the Boomers would face the two powerhouse nations in the middle of July in the United Arab Emirates' capital, sources said. The Boomers would then travel to Europe for another slate of warmup games, sources said, ahead of the start of the Olympics on July 26 in Paris, France.
Australian Boomers' Extended Paris Olympics Squad
Chris Goulding, Joe Ingles, Nick Kay, Dante Exum, Johnny Furphy, Patty Mills, Dejan Vasiljevic, Sam Froling, Rocco Zikarsky, Duop Reath, Josh Giddey, Will Magnay, Dyson Daniels, Josh Green, Will McDowell-White, Jack McVeigh, Keanu Pinder, Xavier Cooks, Jack White, Matisse Thybulle, Jock Landale, Matthew Dellavedova
