Keisei Tominaga to forego NBA Summer League to focus on Paris Summer Olympics

Keisei Tominaga became a star this past season, playing for Nebraska and helping the Cornhuskers reach the program’s first NCAA Tournament since 2014. His time in Lincoln has come to an end though, with Tominaga hoping to secure a spot in the NBA somehow.

While he is going through the draft process, Tominaga could have participated in the NBA Summer League to prove he is worthy of some kind of spot if he were to go undrafted. Instead, representing Japan at the 2024 Olympic Games is the route Tominaga will take.

Going to Paris to play with the national team will take Tominaga’s priority. He has been a staple for Japan since debuting in February 2022 while attempting to qualify for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

Eventually, Tominaga will return focus to the NBA in hopes of securing a deal.

“Former #Nebrasketball standout @KeiseiTominaga will not participate in the NBA Summer League,” Robin Washut of On3’s Husker Online said via X. “He will focus on representing Japan in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris and hopes to earn an NBA offer afterward.”

Japan has already qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics in men’s basketball, being placed inside Group B. They have been placed in a group with host France, Germany, and a team to be determined later through a different qualifying round. Six teams are still alive to take the final spot in the group, with a mini-tournament taking place in Latvia in early July.

This is Japan’s just eighth-ever basketball appearance at the Olympics but have never won a medal.

NBA teams have shown interest in Tominaga during the pre-draft process. He worked out for the Los Angeles Clippers and Sacramento Kings according to Washut. Front offices will now get an advanced look at Tominaga at the Olympics, going up against multiple NBA-caliber players in the tournament.

Tominaga played the past three seasons in Lincoln after playing two seasons of JUCO ball at Ranger College (TX) to start his career. He left ranked seventh in program history with 178 career 3-pointers, and his 76 triples made this past season rank eighth in single-season history for Nebraska.

In 2023-24, Tominaga earned second-team All-Big Ten honors from the league’s coaches this past season after averaging north of 15 points per game. He wound up as the leading scorer on the best Nebraska team in 30 seasons, which earned its highest NCAA Tournament seed since 1994 and finished top-three in the Big Ten for the first time since 1991.

On3’s Alex Weber contributed to this report