Nigeria is ranking second only behind United States of America in the number of players from USA’s National Basketball Association (NBA) that are appearing for each country at the ongoing Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, megasportsarena.com reports.
Although the Nigerian team, D’Tigress lost their opening group match 65-84 against FIBA’s third-ranked Australia, the losing side beat their conquerors in terms of the number of NBA players they registered for the competition.
Interestingly, outside Team USA, Nigeria has the most number of current NBA players on its roster, followed by Australia with seven and France with six, while 11 of the 12 competing squads in the men’s basketball tournament have at least one each.
That has created a new record of 121 NBA and Women National Basketball Association (WNBA) players registered for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, where the male and female regular 5×5 competitions will feature new milestones.
A total of 49 current NBA players will feature in the male category, while a record 29 from the WNBA are also in attendance, with the elite basketball league also offering an overall 38 former players as well, being 16 men and 22 women.
The regular rosters at Tokyo 2020 also have 13 players who have been named into NBA All-Stars, while the inaugural 3×3 basketball tournament has four current and one former WNBA player, on a log that shows the previous records in the Olympics were 46 men and 26 women, which was set at Rio 2016 in Brazil.
