Kyrie Irving is considering a return to the US men’s national team for the 2024 Olympics after being left off the squad in 2020.

Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium stated that Irving had a “deep desire” to represent the United States in Paris this summer on FanDuel TV’s Run it Back.

A significant number of NBA players have expressed their desire to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics. Irving, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Tyrese Haliburton, Anthony Edwards, and Jayson Tatum were among the 41 athletes in the player pool that was made public in January.

In September, Charania and Joe Vardon revealed that James had started enlisting members for the team. Irving expressed “serious interest” in committing, although he wasn’t included as one of the athletes that his old teammate was trying to attract.

James, Curry, Durant, Tatum, Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday, and Joel Embiid are the players USA Basketball is targeting as the “expected core” of the team, barring injuries, according to a report published on February 28 by Charania and Vardon.

Right now, Embiid’s situation would be the most worrying. Although the reigning NBA MVP hasn’t participated in a game since sustaining a surgically necessary knee injury on January 30, there is still hope that he will suit up for the Philadelphia 76ers before the postseason gets underway.

Despite missing two lengthy stints of time because of injuries to his thumb and heel, Irving may make it to 60 games for the second straight NBA season. That would be his first action since the 2017–18 and 2018–19 seasons.

Irving competed for Team USA and won two gold medals. He won his first tournament in 2014, the FIBA World Cup, and then the Olympics in 2016. He averaged 11.4 points and a team-high 4.9 assists per game while starting all eight of the team’s games in Rio de Janeiro.