Team USA has always been the best national team in basketball, and it hasn’t even been close in generations. But all of that may be changing with the growth of basketball worldwide.
Ray Allen was speaking to the media during a visit to the NBA Academy India and indicated that the road to Olympic glory will be far more challenging in 2028 than it has been in recent years.
“I guarantee you that by 2028, it’s going to be stiffer for the Americans to say that we’re the best country in the world at basketball. If you look at the leagues in Europe, there are a lot of kids coming up that are going to be way better than American players. Which is a great thing for the sport… Look at the top 10 best players in the league. Around 75% are not born in the USA. That speaks volumes of how international the game has become. It also tells kids in America that you have got to work on your skills because players around the world are starting to play good basketball. That is reflected in world competitions like the Olympics.”
Team USA had some high-profile losses to France, Australia, and Nigeria during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but still managed to win the Gold medal, indicating that they aren’t as untouchable as they once were. With the emergence of national teams like France, Team USA will have a tall task on their hand in the future (literally).
No American player has won the MVP since James Harden when he did it in 2018. This means there have been five consecutive years of international players dominating the award, with the trend not looking to change. Many of the presumed candidates for the award heading into the 2023-24 season are also international players.
LeBron James was the last American player to finish as a runner-up, doing so in 2020.
Can Team USA Continue Outclassing The Rest?
Even though there is more top-end European talent in the NBA now than top-end American talent, they’re all spread out across nations. Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and more all play for different nations and won’t ever line up together to take down Team USA in competitive basketball.
If a single team needs to emerge as Argentina did in 2004, it’ll likely be the French national team. They already know how it is to win over an Olympic USA team as they showed in the Tokyo Olympics. With the emergence of Victor Wembanyama and the possible transition of Joel Embiid to the French national team, the talent is seemingly stacking.
Team USA notoriously lacks big men beyond Bam Adebayo, but hopefully, the emergence of players like Chet Holmgren can eventually give them the size they need to keep their era of dominance over the world ongoing.
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