Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Knee injury sidelines Olynyk
Center suffers bone bruise, will miss time with Canadian team
Make it 0 for 2 for the Miami Heat when it comes to basketball’s World Cup.
Days after Heat center Bam Adebayo was released by USA Basketball in the first round of cuts for the national team, Heat power forward Kelly Olynyk has been sidelined from the Canadian national team due to a bone bruise on his knee.
A source familiar with the situation confirmed to the South Florida Sun Sentinel that an MRI on Olynyk’s knee revealed the injury. Olynyk had already bypassed traveling with the Canadian team for a series of exhibitions in Australia.
Olynyk was injured Friday night in Canada’s exhibition victory over Nigeria in Toronto.
A source familiar with the injury said the hope is that Olynyk will be able to participate at the start of Heat training camp, which opens the final week of September. The Heat open the regular season Oct. 23 at American-Airlines Arena against Memphis Grizzlies.
Olynyk took an awkward tumble during the third quarter of the exhibition against Nigeria, with the initial prognosis that the 7-footer would miss only a week and then continue on to the World Cup, which opens the end of this month in China.
That, however, did not prove to be the case.
Olynyk, a mainstay on the Canadian national team, had 11 points, three rebounds, three assists and two steals in his 16 minutes before being sidelined in Friday’s 96-87 victory.
Like USA Basketball, Canada is dealing with a limited roster after several players elected to bypass the World Cup, with Tristan Thompson, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jamal Murray, R.J. Barrett, Andrew Wiggins, Dwight Powell and Brandon Clarke among those skipping the opportunity with Canada.
Olynyk is entering the third season of the four-year, $50 million contract he signed with the Heat in the 2017 offseason, with the right to opt out and become a free agent next summer. The 28-year-old closed last season as a Heat starter in the power rotation alongside Adebayo, who had received a late invitation for what turned into a mere week with the U.S. national team.
Both Adebayo and Olynyk have returned to South Florida.
Olynyk stressed at the start of Canada’s camp that he viewed playing for the national team as opportunity he could not bypass.
“To be able to compete for your country and help your country out, put your country on the map, you know, it’s something special,” the Torontoborn, Kamloops, B.C.-raised big man told the Toronto Star. “And to be able to put on a jersey with Canada on the front, it’s a prideful thing, it’s a special thing. It’s an opportunity that’ll pass you by quicker than you think. So to be able to come out here and do that, it’s always something to look back on, tell your kids, your family, friends.
“It’s something in the history books. So it’s something to do and something not to take for granted.”
The turnaround for Adebayo and Olynyk could have been stark, with the World Cup scheduled to end just two weeks before the start of training camp.