On Wednesday the International Olympic Committee voted to officially award the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games to the city of Los Angeles, as the Olympics will return to the United States for the first time since 1996 and to Los Angeles for the first time since 1984.
Originally Los Angeles was in a running to host the 2024 games, but instead of competing with Paris, France for 2024 they reached an agreement earlier this summer for Paris to host in 2024 and L.A. to get 2028.
Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss and president of basketball operations Magic Johnson were heavily involved in bringing the Olympics back to the great city of Los Angeles, as they were both nominees for the Olympic Board of Directors. Lakers great Kobe Bryant also joined the Board of Directors at a later date.
Additionally, Buss recently said that she hopes the Lakers new state-of-the-art practice facility, the UCLA Health Training Center, will be used as a training center for Team USA before and during the games.
With the Olympics set to return to Los Angeles, the Lakers home arena, the Staples Center, will also likely be used to host some of the events, mainly the basketball tournament.
While 2028 is still over a decade away, there could possibly be some Lakers players playing for Team USA in the Olympics as both Brandon Ingram and Julius Randle played for the USA Select team last summer. Rookie Lonzo Ball has also shown a lot of promise and could be one of the NBA’s top stars by the time 2028 rolls around.
