The hype for the 2008 US Olympic Men’s Basketball team’s documentary is already through the roof. Players like Kevin Durant are already openly talking about wanting to watch the film, but there are quite a few players in the NBA still who lived that tournament firsthand.
The active players just see LeBron James and Chris Paul under contract, with Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard looking to get picked up. In 2008, they were all in their prime, alongside the likes of Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant. It was an incredibly ambitious setting, and one of the coaches from that squad commented on it.
Coach Jim Boeheim was a part of Mike Krzyzewski’s coaching staff and opened up on the selflessness people had on that team to try and win Gold for their country.
"The NBA players were absolutely 100% in."
Looking back at the 2008 "Redeem Team", coach Jim Boeheim tells @RickKamlaSports & @Adaniels33 he was very impressed with the commitment made from the players.@therealboeheim | @usabasketball | @Cuse_MBB pic.twitter.com/TnhVIhqQey
— SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) August 22, 2022
“We didn’t know what to expect. Once we got underway, the NBA players were just 100% in. No issues, no problems. Coach K runs a tight ship, so he had standards that had to be met. I think it’s been noted that we had one guy late in the entire Olympic process over all 3 months and that was apologized for immediately and never happened again. You have to remember, Coach K has a lot of meetings, morning meetings, pre-practice meetings, after-practice meetings, film sessions, etc.”
“When you have Dwyane Wade saying he’ll come off the bench and be the leading scorer off the bench, Chris Paul came off the bench on that team. Guys didn’t care who scored or how much they scored, they just wanted to win.
The Men’s team was extremely successful in their Gold medal pursuit, restarting a Gold streak that ended with the team’s shocking loss in the 2004 Olympics.
The upcoming documentary on the USA Redeem Team will be executive produced by LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, members of the squad, and will debut on Netflix.
