Oshkosh native Tyrese Haliburton, former Buck Jrue Holiday aim for Olympic gold on Team USA

In the Olympic Games, there are no guarantees of victory, but the closest thing to a sure thing for a Wisconsin athlete to win in Paris is in men’s basketball.

“All Things Considered” host Brady Carlson spoke with JR Radcliffe, trending sports reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, about the Wisconsin-connected players in the Summer Games.

This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Brady Carlson: Let’s start with Tyrese Halliburton. He played for Oshkosh North High School. In the NBA, he helped the Indiana Pacers return to the playoffs for the first time in years. Now he’s part of Team USA. What should we expect from him in Paris?

JR Radcliffe: It’s been a meteoric rise for a guy who’s still just 24 years old. This is his first Olympic opportunity. He had a tremendous season — third-team All-NBA, led the league in assists with 10.9 per game. The Pacers, of course, beat the Bucks in the playoffs (and) went to the Eastern conference finals. So this is really a chance for him to show what he’s got on a national stage.

Team USA, at least in the past, they haven’t necessarily relied on one or two guys just truly sparkling or anything like that. But you’ll notice that when he’s out there, he’s a playmaker, especially as a point guard, a guy who gets to handle the basketball a lot. I’m sure more and more people are gonna know his name once this whole thing is over.

BC: He’s playing with some multi-time NBA champions, including Jrue Holiday. He helped the Bucks win their NBA title in 2021, and just won another with the Boston Celtics. Now he’s back with Team USA.

JRR: It is a charmed life right now that Jrue Holiday is living. I don’t know if people remember, but in 2021, the season was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bucks beat the Suns in late July — July 20, 2021. That’s game six.
They had to have the parade pretty quickly in Milwaukee then, like two days later, because Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton had to get overseas to the Olympics. They basically got zero downtime whatsoever that year.

Holiday was very good in the 2021 Olympics. He really stood out, and he’s gonna have a chance to do it one more time.

BC: Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo has led Team Greece to its first men’s Olympic basketball appearance since 2008. What do you make of his play in the qualifying rounds, especially given that he ended his NBA season with injuries?

JRR: He’s been on a minutes restriction; he is still coming off of a pretty significant injury. So he’s not gonna be playing full bore. He wasn’t the team’s leading scorer, even in one of these games. I think in the one against Croatia, he just scored 13 points and did his part and then checked out because Greece had the game in hand.

I don’t know if we’ll see Giannis in his full capacity when he gets to Paris, but if Greece is going to contend for a medal, which is on the table, it’s obviously gonna have to be a lot because they’ve got a superstar seven footer who can dribble the basketball and fly to the hoop. There aren’t gonna be many Olympic teams that have that sort of talent, even with a minutes restriction.

BC: And we’ll still see more of Giannis than his brother and fellow Bucks player, Thanasis Antetokounmpo.

JRR: Yeah. He’s with the team, traveling with the team, a part of the team and would have been on it, were it not for a torn Achilles tendon that is going to cost him all of the upcoming NBA season as well.

However, because the Antetokounmpos are the first family of basketball in Greece and Milwaukee, he has a younger brother, Kostas, who is now playing. He is an alumnus of Dominican High School in Milwaukee and Whitefish Bay, and played at Dayton briefly. He’s not as big as Giannis, and he’s a guy who has not gotten any strong foothold in the NBA per se. He was with the Lakers on their roster when they won the 2020 NBA championship in the bubble. So he was part of that.

He has not played a lot in these games. He didn’t play against Slovenia or Croatia. So I would not expect that we see a lot of Kostas. They have a lot of other guys who are NBA caliber players who can soak up minutes. But it is cool that the Antetokounmpos will be well represented.

BC: So how many Wisconsin-connected players do you think might end up with a men’s basketball medal in the 2024 Olympics?

JRR: It would be truly devastating if the United States did not come away with some sort of medal. It will probably be gold. There are only 12 teams in this competition. They have been the team to beat for ages and it is a big deal when they lose. So if they don’t win gold, it will already be disappointing. If they don’t medal, it will be stunning beyond words. So I would expect that Tyrese Haliburton and Jrue Holiday will come home with something.

It would be far more meaningful if Greece even gets onto the medal table. If they get a bronze, that’s a huge deal for Greece. That would be a huge deal for Giannis.
It’s probably not going to happen if you look at sort of the odds that are out there. There’s Team USA, there’s Team Canada with a ton of great NBA players, Serbia with Nikola Jokic, France with Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert. Some very familiar names who are NBA stars.

But you know that if Giannis came home with a medal, even if it’s bronze around his neck, he would be just so happy. So everybody with a Wisconsin connection has a chance to do something here in men’s basketball.

WPR is talking with Wisconsin’s athletes competing in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. Head to WPR’s special Olympics and Paralympics page to meet more of the competitors.