The coronavirus pandemic may force Andrew Bogut into retirement and shatter his dream of finally winning an Olympic medal.
Bogut desperately wanted to play for Australia one last time in Tokyo and until recently that was very much his intention.
But with coronavirus pushing the Olympics back to 2021, the battle-worn and injury-prone 35-year-old isn’t sure he can wait another year.
“It’s [my career] all been thrown into a washing machine, essentially,” Bogut told Offsiders on Sunday.
“I can get up for a basketball game any day of the week, but it’s hard to get up for five, six days of training a week and lifting weights.”
Bogut won an NBA championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2015, but it’s no secret that winning a medal for his country would mean even more to him.
And the Tokyo Olympics would give Bogut his best-ever chance to do it, with Ben Simmons finally ready to play for Australia and Dante Exum, Jonah Bolden and Thon Maker also looming as possible additions to a Patty Mills and Joe Ingles-led team which missed out on bronze medals in agonising fashion at the 2016 Olympics and 2019 FIBA World Cup.
“We’ve been tantalizingly close, and the squad we’re going to have is arguably going to be the best squad in the history of the Boomers, on paper at least,” Bogut said.
“To be part of that, selfishly, is something I really want to do, but the body is what it comes down to.”
Bogut says he hopes to make a decision on his playing future in mid-May.
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