The 2024 Summer Olympics kick off this weekend and the Denver Nuggets will be represented on the court, though not on USA Basketball’s roster. Nikola Jokic will lead Serbia while Jamal Murray teams up to create a two-headed monster with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for Canada. Jamal will compete in his first Olympic games, Jokic competed in 2016. Vlatko Cancar has also competed in the Olympic games (2020) but as Slovenia fell just short of qualifying for the 2024 games, his international run this year is already over. Murray joins Cancar and Jokic with a handful of other Nuggets who have competed on the world stage in the most iconic international basketball tournament we have. Here’s some of the best from Denver to wear their country’s uniform.
Nikola Jokic – Serbia
Jokic is making his second appearance in the Olympic games. His first was in 2016 (Serbia did not qualify for the 2020 games in Tokyo). That was the best showing for Serbia thus far in the Olympics. Jokic was quickly establishing himself with the Nuggets after becoming one of the best players for Mega Leks in Serbia and his rise to stardom helped earn his way onto a very talented Serbian national team. Though Jokic was not the star of that team by any means, he made a profound impact and helped to put Serbia on the level as one of the basketball powerhouses in the world. In group play he dropped 25 points on the Americans and made DeMarcus Cousins and (now fellow teammate) DeAndre Jordan look outmatched. Joker wound up leading Serbia in steals, blocks and rebounds for the tournament. Fully on team USA’s radar, Jokic had a much tougher go of it come the gold medal game where USA hounded him relentlessly with a rotation of defenders. Ultimately, Nikola and the rest of the Serbian team were unable to stay with team USA and lost the gold medal game by double digits. However, their run to silver was still a great one and remains the standard for international play for the Balkan country.
Carmelo Anthony – USA
Carmelo is the most decorated of any Nugget to play in the Olympics. He is also one of a just a couple players to have the distinction of playing for one of the most infamous and maligned USA teams while also playing for one of the most famous and beloved USA teams. Melo’s first Olympic action was the former, he was part of the 2004 team in Athens that is generally considered the largest failure in the history of USA basketball at the Olympics. That team, the fourth iteration of Team USA since professional athletes were allowed to compete, failed to reach the gold medal game which had not happened since 1988 and had never happened in the professional players era. Melo was coming off his rookie season with the Nuggets and was largely relegated to the bench. He clashed with USA coach Larry Brown (as did many of the players) and later claimed he threw his bronze medal in a lake (he actually gave it to a family member who ended up auctioning it off).
Melo returned to the Olympic games in 2008 on the aptly named “Redeem Team.” With four more years of seasoning under his belt, he was one of the key members of that team along with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd, Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard. Team USA went through a major overhaul to their approach following the 2004 failure. Players were required to make a multi-year commitment and the Redeem Team had to compete in the Americas qualifying tournament just to get into the games (it was an imbalance of talent so great that it became comical as Kidd was attempting off the backboard alley-oop passes from the three point line to James). USA cruised to a gold medal, beating every team by double digits, and Melo found his niche as an international player. He would leave the Nuggets for New York by the time the 2012 games rolled around but continued to represent team USA, becoming one of the most decorated basketball Olympians of all time.
Antonio McDyess – USA
One of the greatest power forwards to ever wear a Denver uniform, McDyess was a bonafide star in the late 90s and early 2000s before multiple knee injuries robbed him of the athleticism that made him one of the most tantalizing athletes of the late 20th century. After a stint in Phoenix, McDyess returned to Denver in 1998 where he was selected to the 2000 USA Men’s Olympic roster. Dice came off the bench for that team but was an effective reserve that helped on team USA’s quest to a gold medal. In the semifinals, perhaps as foreshadowing of what was to come in four years, USA found themselves on the edge of an upset against Lithuania. Alonzo Mourning fouled out which brought McDyess in to close out the game. He ended up with the go ahead putback bucket after Kevin Garnett missed two free throws, and was the hand in the face of Sarunas Jasikevicius on the final shot which came up way short. USA escaped that game with an 85-83 win and went on to blow out France in the gold medal game.
Sarunas Marciulionis – Lithuania
A very decorated Olympian, and a not so decorated Nugget, Sarunas Marciulionis played in the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta for Lithuania just about a month after he was traded to the Nuggets. It was his third trip to the games and the third time he would earn an Olympic medal. Marciulionis won gold in 1988 in his first games which included a massive upset of the Americans in the semifinals. During those games he played for the USSR, but by 1992 the Soviet Union had disbanded and so Marciulionis played for his home country of Lithuania. They won bronze in ’92 before repeating that same feat again in ’96. On the Nuggets side Marciulionis only played in 17 games following his final Olympic performance. Knee injuries and age slowed him down and ultimately it would be the final season of his NBA career. While his time in Denver was forgettable, Saruans’ international career as half of a devastating 1-2 punch with Arvydas Sabonis was enough on it’s own merits to get him inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.
