The roster of the United States basketball team for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games generated great expectation and debate among fans and experts. An illusion that is based on a rich history of Olympic success and dominance, but which can also be explained as a need for vindication for a team that did not achieve its goal in the last World Cup in 2023. As happened in Tokyo 2020, when they restored their reputation two years after the worst performance in a World Cup, those chosen by Steve Kerr are installed as candidates for the gold medal in the huge Paris Bercy stadium.
Since the inclusion of basketball in the Olympic Games in 1936, the United States has been a dominant force in the discipline. In the French capital they will go for their fifth consecutive gold medal. The iconic “Dream Team” of 1992, led by legendary figures such as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, forever changed the relationship between the NBA and Olympism. Perhaps the one in Paris 2024 is the most powerful national team since the one that won the title in the Catalan city.
The challenge for coach Steve Kerr will be to manage expectations and maintain cohesion within the group in the midst of intense competition and pressure to obtain a new gold medal, a goal that always accompanies this team in every Olympic edition.
For LeBron James, 39, it will be his fourth Olympic Games. He won a bronze medal in 2004 (after losing the semifinal to Argentina) and won the gold medals in 2008 and 2012. For Stephen Curry, 36, these will be his first Games, although he has two world titles. Durant, 35, can make history by becoming the first player with four golds, after winning in London 2012, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. Tatum, Booker, Holiday, Davis and Adebayo were also Olympic champions. For Embiid, who chose last year to compete with the American flag, it will be his first international competition.
The U.S. national team will begin training in Las Vegas in July. They will play warm-up games against Australia and Serbia on July 15 and 17 at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. They will then travel to the O2 Arena in London and face South Sudan on July 20 and Germany on July 22.
Their debut in Paris will be on July 28 against the Serbia of Nikola Jokić and Bogdan Bogdanovic, their great rival in the group stage. Canada (with Jamal Murray, Andrew Wiggins and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), Victor Wembanyama’s France and Germany are the other main rivals to beat for a team that, in the previous one, is shaping up to be overwhelming.
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