The 2008 U.S. Olympic men’s team has entered the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025. The late great Kobe Bryant was the leader of that Redeem Team, and LeBron James spoke glowingly of him at the enshrinement ceremony.
“Think he was just the missing link that we needed in order to regain the dominance with Team USA,” James said. “He brought a sense of seriousness to the team. He made us lock in. We knew once he joined and he was gonna be committed that we couldn’t be doing nothing half a**.
“Kob wasn’t going for that,” James continued. “So, it made myself, [Chris Paul], [Dwyane Wade], [Carmelo Anthony], lock in even more because we wanted to show him we can get to that level as well. So, it was just an honor to be out there with him.
“I was 23 years old,” James added. “Being out on the floor with him, he had already won championships before and things of that nature. So, it was levels that I was trying to get to. D-Wade had already won one. So, we just wanted to get to his level and make him proud.
“At the end of that trip, when he was hoisting that gold medal on top of that podium, we for sure made him proud,” James concluded.
Team USA had historically been the dominant force in international basketball, but had lost that stranglehold in the mid-2000s. The U.S. only won the bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics and the 2006 FIBA World Championship that followed.
So, there was a lot of pressure leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics to reassert that dominance. Then-head coach Mike Krzyzewski felt compelled to recruit Bryant, and it proved to be a great decision.
Bryant had a strong message for the likes of James, Dwyane Wade, and Carmelo Anthony, who were part of that 2004 team. Anthony revealed he loved the energy he was bringing to the group and felt it was exactly what they needed.
As James pointed out, Bryant also got all of them to lock in. He influenced the whole team to start working out early, and this was the kind of dedication and discipline that was needed.
Team USA would then go on to dominate the competition in Beijing. The Redeem Team went 8-0 and beat their opponents by an average margin of 27.9 points. Spain did put up a good fight in the gold medal game, but still lost 118-107.
Bryant finished the Olympics with averages of 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game. Like James, Anthony also called him the missing piece, and one wonders what might have happened if he weren’t around.
Bryant would be with Team USA for the 2012 London Olympics as well, and they won the gold again. He would wrap up his national team career with a perfect 36-0 record.
Getting back to this ceremony, this was the second time that Bryant, who passed away in a helicopter crash in 2020, had been enshrined posthumously into the Hall of Fame. He previously made it in for his career as part of the Class of 2020.
