LA Clippers: Tokyo Summer Olympics officially postponed until 2021

The I.O.C has officially postponed the Tokyo Summer Olympics until 2021 meaning LA Clippers players and others in the NBA will have to wait to play.

The International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo Organizing Committee jointly announced today that the 2020 Olympics will now be postponed until the summer of 2021. While this affects many types of athletes, it is most relevant to us due to members of the LA Clippers being finalists to make the Team USA basketball team.

The joint statement from the groups can be read in full here but the main takeaway is this:

"In the present circumstances and based on the information provided by the WHO today, the IOC President and the Prime Minister of Japan have concluded that the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo must be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021, to safeguard the health of the athletes, everybody involved in the Olympic Games and the international community."

This move was expected, especially after Canada announced they would pull their athletes out of the games if they were still held in 2020. The world is still in the midst of a pandemic and there is no real end in sight for a majority of countries including the United States of America.

A delay allows for the world to recover and for the athletes to compete at their peak form without having to worry about loved ones at home or contracting the virus while abroad.

For Team USA, players will have time to get back in the swing of things. With the NBA suspended indefinitely, we have no idea what a Team USA would look like should the games have still been played this summer.

Players would have been fresh, sure, but with restrictions on workouts imposed by the league, they may have been out of shape by July. We also don’t know at what point the NBA season will resume and it’s possible the league still could be playing into late June/early July if they are able to return.

Paul George, Montrezl Harrell, and Kawhi Leonard of the LA Clippers were named as finalists for the 2020 team.

No dates have been officially set for the Olympic games, so make sure to follow us on Twitter and to check back here for all your LA Clippers news, rumors and updates.