Canadian Olynyk in a tough spot for last-chance qualifier

Kelly Olynyk isn’t saying no to this summer, but he knows the odds are long that he can be there when Canada’s senior men’s team makes one last attempt to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.

Olynyk, 28, is in that tenuous situation this summer where he’ll be playing out his contract — assuming he doesn’t accept the player’s option on his deal — and be a free agent when Canada is attempting to earn a berth in the Olympics.

That the tournament is in Victoria, B.C., the province in which he grew up, though he was born in Toronto, only makes the possibility of not playing that much harder to stomach.

“Yeah, definitely. That’s always there,” the 6-foot-11 power forward/centre said when asked about his contract situation complicating the situation. “Often the reason why guys can’t play is because they don’t have a contract. It’s a lot to risk, especially with me playing last year and getting hurt and missing the training camp and pre-season, basically, and just trying to get back to 100%, still.”

Olynyk was one of three NBA players taking part in the PREFIBA World Cup tuneups last August at the Mattamy Atheletic Centre.

During a tune-up game against Nigeria, Olynyk slipped on a wet floor and went down hard on his right knee. A bone bruise was the initial diagnosis and while that sounded mild, the recovery from it was anything but.

Olynyk missed all of training camp and the pre-season as he was unable to put weight on the knee at all for fear that the bone bruise could become a fracture.

“It was just a thing that you have to let it heal, and if you don’t your bone’s gonna be weak,” Olynyk said. “And you don’t want to keep loading it and putting pressure on it because it’s like a bruise. If you keep pressing it, it’ll stay and the bone’s gonna be weak. So you’ve gotta let it heal. And the only thing you can really do for that is (give it) time. You can’t speed it up. “

Based on the way contracts are trending, it’s unlikely, though not out of the question, that Olynyk and his agent would choose to accept the player’s option he has remaining on his deal for next season at $12.2-million which means he’ll become a free agent and won’t sign at the earliest until early July.

That means playing without a contract, if he so chooses, this summer in Victoria and that’s risky.

“It’s not easy to walk into one of those things and to put your career on the line,” Olynyk told a handful of reporters following the Miami Heat shootaround. “And as much as you want to, and as much as you know you’d love to do it, it’s tough. It’s really tough to do, but if I’m able to and my contract and stuff has settled out and I’m feeling healthy then there’s no reason why I won’t be there.”

Again the likelihood of that contract being settled by June 23rd is slim.