This isn’t the Dream Team, but it’s very close. One hundred days exactly before the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (OG), USA Basketball announced, Wednesday April 17 in a press release, the list of twelve men selected to compete in the Games with the American men’s basketball team.
“The goal is to win gold, they know it”, declared Grant Hill, the boss of Team USA, interviewed on the NBC channel. Often presented as “the man with the toughest job in the world”, the man who was responsible for deciding among the host of stars who applied to participate in Paris 2024 has put together a multi-star squad. Cumulatively, ten Olympic gold medals face the competition before the opening of the Paris Olympics. Kevin Durant, star of the Phoenix Suns, will pursue a fourth Olympic coronation in Paris with the American team – a record for men –; LeBron James, the best scorer in NBA history, will also play his fourth Olympics – he was part of the team that failed to bring home gold in Athens in 2004.
And the rest of the squad is as good as it gets. From leader Stephen Curry, Olympic neophyte but with a rich record in the NBA, to interior players Bam Adebayo and Anthony Davis, including Jayson Tatum, the winger of the Boston Celtics, or Joel Embiid (who could also have played the Games for France ), the roster is a constellation of stars. Seven of the twelve players signed finished the NBA regular season among the fifteen best scorers in the big North American league. And ten of them were selected for the All Star Game, the match bringing together the greatest players in the NBA.
Olympic gold as the only goal
“This team promises to be emblematic,” recognized Grant Hill, who left many of the big names in American basketball on the sidelines – his last preselection included 41 names. “ We give ourselves a chance to win with all this talent we have. » Augurant of an Olympic summer “exciting and not easy”, with increased competition and numerous candidates for the podium – starting with the French team -, the boss of the American team, Olympic champion with Team USA in Atlanta, in 1996, had the mission of assembling the training well before the start of his training camp, scheduled for Las Vegas in early July. And at no time was there any question of testing the players, most of them knowledgeable NBA veterans.
“Obviously, it’s a great honor to represent your country, reacted Bam Adebayo, quoted by the Associated Press agency. But being included with the players who are considered the twelve best to represent the United States, for me, it takes on another dimension. »
After the misstep of the 2023 World Cup, where the Americans failed in fourth place, the twelve selected, who will be led in Paris by Steve Kerr, the coach of the Golden State Warriors, will only have gold in head. In nineteen appearances at the Olympic Games, the men of Team USA have each time brought home a medal across the Atlantic: sixteen gold medals, one silver and two bronze. And the team has held first place since the “Redeem Team”, which won at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, erasing the 2004 affront.
Thirty-two years after the Dream Team, which propelled basketball into another dimension on a global level with its procession of NBA stars – from Michael Jordan to Magic Johnson – their distant heirs have only one idea in mind before fly to Paris: leave an indelible mark in history, so that these gold diggers in turn deserve the long-dreamed-of nickname of Dream Team.
- The American team at the Paris Olympics
Leaders: Stephen Curry (Golden State), Tyrese Haliburton (Indiana), Jrue Holiday (Boston).
Wingbacks: LeBron James (Los Angeles Lakers), Kevin Durant (Phoenix), Jayson Tatum (Boston), Kawhi Leonard (Los Angeles Clippers), Devin Booker (Phoenix), Anthony Edwards (Minnesota).
Interiors: Joel Embiid (Philadelphie), Anthony Davis (Los Angeles Lakers), Bam Adebayo (Miami).