Kevin Durant, LeBron James, and Stephen Curry came together this summer to join Team USA for the 2024 Paris Olympics to prove to the world that the USA is still the best basketball nation. They proved that by going undefeated in their quest for a Gold medal, beating nations like Serbia and France who many tipped to usurp them.
Durant appeared on the ‘Out The Mud” podcast with Zach Randolph and Tony Allen where he went on a lengthy rant about why Team USA is still considerably ahead of the rest of the world in basketball.
“We beat Serbia three times this summer. You know what I’m saying? So, like one game. Yeah, they’re going to get a game where they look solid. France beat us one time. They did beat us last year. But we beat them for the Gold last Olympics too. We beat them twice for the gold.”
“There’s going to be players like Victor, Jokic, Giannis, I won’t put Shai in there because they’re next door. Those three, if you’re going to look at three players and say, ‘They caught up to the rest of the Americans,’ when we had hundreds and hundreds of Americans that do the same, you can’t just use three players to make that claim to say that it’s starting to catch up now or because of one tight game against Serbia, I don’t believe it’s even close.”
Durant then went on to say that the best international players like Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic were more influenced by American basketball. He also hammered home the point that basketball belongs to the USA and a few close games against international teams doesn’t mean the guard has shifted.
“For people to give them credit for just being in a close game with us shows that they ain’t even — can’t compete. We created basketball. They are influenced by us. Luka was influenced by Americans. So is Jokic, so is Toni Kukoc, so is Manu Ginóbili, Tony Parker. All these dudes were influenced by Americans. We set the blueprint.“
“It’s cute for sure for people who want to experience history. ‘I was there to see the changing of the guard between the Americans and Europeans,’ so people wanna try to switch the narrative up or hype some s**t up when in reality, we’ve been dominating dudes for this whole time. They finally get close to 20 points and now you’re saying they’re catching up.”
“This basketball s**t is ours. We created this s**t for real. The best players come from the places we come from. We set the standard of what being great in basketball is.”
Durant is correct in the sense that the USA still has the best players in the world by quantity. There are more top-level American players than international, but the best players in the league are all international stars.
The last American MVP was James Harden in 2018, with the last American MVP finalist being Stephen Curry in 2021 (third place). Team USA is still the best, but the best individual players are scattered across nations, which is why the odds of one nation rising to challenge the USA’s status will be challenging.
The 2028 Olympics might bring the French Revolution to Los Angeles, with multiple lottery picks in the last few seasons hailing from France, led by Victor Wembanyama. Outside of that, it’s hard to say any country has a solid enough pipeline of players to challenge the collective strength of Team USA at the pinnacle of the sport when their best players are playing.
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