Basketball contests at the 1996 Olympic Games were held from July 20, 1996 to August 4, 1996. Games took place in the Morehouse College Gymnasium and in the Georgia Dome. For the second straight Olympic games, the American men's team composed almost completely of NBA players won the gold medal.
This was also the last Olympics before the founding of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) in the United States, and it has been the only Summer Olympics to take place in a city with an NBA team – since the International Olympic Committee started allowing these professional players to compete – because Atlanta is the home of the Atlanta Hawks team. The Summer Olympics have never returned to the United States or to Canada (Toronto) since then.
With the U.S. winning the gold medal, Scottie Pippen would become the first person to win NBA championship and Olympic gold medal in the same year twice, having played for Chicago Bulls in the NBA Finals.[1] He had played for the Bulls in 1992 and later that year, for the "Dream Team" at the Barcelona Olympics.
Qualification
An NOC may enter up to one men's team with 12 players and up to one women's team with 12 players. The reigning world champions and the host country qualify automatically, as do the winners of the five continental championships, plus the runner-up and third place from the Americas, the runner-up from Asia and the second through fourth places from the Europe tournament. For the women's tournament, the extra teams consisted of the runner-up from the Americas, in addition to the second and third places from Asia and Europe.
Angola
Puerto Rico
Argentina
Brazil
China
South Korea
Yugoslavia
Lithuania
Croatia
Greece
Australia
United States – World champions and Olympic hosts
Zaire
Canada
Cuba
Japan
Ukraine
Italy
Russia
