(ATR) United States President Barack Obama welcomed the NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers to the White House on Thursday.
The Cavaliers won the franchise’s first basketball championship in June led by LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. The NBA All-Stars are two of the premier players on the roster that features eight Olympians.
James leads the group with the most Olympic hardware, earning two gold medals in Beijing 2008 and London 2012 after his first Olympic appearance where he earned a bronze at the Athens 2004 Games.
Veteran NBA player Richard Jefferson was also on the U.S. Olympic basketball team that earned bronze in Athens, his only Olympic appearance.
The majority of the Olympians on the Cavaliers roster competed at the London 2012 Games. Kevin Love joined LeBron at the top of the podium with Team USA while Timofey Mozgov and Sasha Kaun helped earn Russia the bronze medal.
Anderson Varejao competed for Brazil during the London Games while Matthew Dellavedova competed with Australia. Each of the teams failed to reach the podium.
Dellavedova also competed against his Cavalier teammate Kyrie Irving in the Rio 2016 Olympics. The two point guards met during group play in a close game where the U.S. team had to make a second-half comeback to win. Irving and Team USA would go on to win the gold medal at Rio 2016 while Dellavedova and Australia placed fourth.
President Obama congratulated the team on their historic comeback in the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors who posted an NBA-record 73 wins during the regular season. The Warriors were up 3-1 before LeBron and Irving fueled a three-game comeback to win in the series in a dramatic seven game series.
"I know that Cleveland could not be happier and prouder of having this trophy," said President Obama. "But this was always a championship group of guys even before last year, and you should be very proud of them."
Written by Kevin Nutley
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