{"id":330441,"date":"2023-09-12T02:13:24","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T02:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=330441"},"modified":"2023-09-12T08:02:42","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T08:02:42","slug":"lebron-gunning-for-paris-games-dream-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=330441","title":{"rendered":"LeBron gunning for Paris Games 'Dream Team'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just a day after Team USA left the Basketball World Cup without a medal, NBA<\/a> superstars LeBron James<\/a> and Stephen Curry<\/a>, expressed interest in competing at next year's Paris Olympics, creating a new iteration of "The Dream Team".<\/p>\n

According to multiple reports in the United States,\ufeff James has been recruiting fellow NBA stars for a chance to win an Olympic gold medal, with Curry also keen to play on the Olympic Games squad guided by Warriors coach Steve Kerr.<\/p>\n

James, 38, led the USA to Olympic gold at the Beijing Games in 2008 and the London Games in 2012 but has not played since. It's understood the NBA great has also reached out to Kevin Durant, Lakers teammate Anthony Davis, Golden State's Draymond Green, Boston's Jayson Tatum, Phoenix's Devin Booker and 38-year-old Chris Paul.<\/p>\n

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Curry has never played for the USA Olympic Games squad while James was a reserve on the 2004 US squad that settled for bronze at the Athens Olympics and a 2006 team that took bronze at the Basketball World Cup.<\/p>\n

Two-time NBA champion Durant, a Phoenix Suns forward who turns 35 later this month, helped US Olympic Games gold-medal efforts in London as well as 2016 in Rio and in 2021 at Tokyo.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At this year's FIBA World Cup the world proved again that the Americans, even with NBA players, are vulnerable on the international stage. And now, every bit of USA Basketball\u2019s focus shifts to the Paris Olympic Games 2024 \u2014 where the challenge will be even tougher than the World Cup, which again reminded the Americans how much the FIBA game has changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe narrative about USA Basketball and FIBA, and do we need reminders, we\u2019re past that,\u201d US coach Steve Kerr said. \u201cThese teams are really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerr will be at the Olympics next summer. His staff \u2014 Erik Spoelstra, Tyronn Lue and Mark Few \u2014 are also committed to the Paris Games. USA Basketball\u2019s team leadership, Grant Hill and Sean Ford, will spend the next few months trying to pick the right 12 players to accompany them to Paris.<\/p>\n

The mission won\u2019t change: Gold or else. Silver won\u2019t be enough, bronze won\u2019t be enough, a repeat of Manila\u2019s fourth-place finish would be a disaster. The US has gone to the Olympics in men\u2019s basketball 19 times and has won 19 medals, the last four of them gold. On paper, it looks easy. It is not, not anymore. It probably never will be easy again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think as Americans and basketball players that we think that we can\u2019t lose,\u201d said USA Basketball legend Carmelo Anthony, who won four Olympic medals \u2014 three gold, one bronze \u2014 with the national team. \u201cI think the fear of losing is what drives us and what keeps us going and wanting to win and feeling so bad after losses. We do a great job as an organisation at (USA Basketball) as far as respecting the game. \u2026 But our players back in America, they know we have to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now USA Basketball will find out which ones want to compete on the high-risk, high-reward stage.<\/p>\n

Win or lose at this World Cup, the US brain trust knew it was going to have some serious roster decisions to make over the coming weeks and months. Some players from this World Cup team will almost certainly be retained for Paris \u2014 Mikal Bridges, Tyrese Haliburton and Austin Reaves clearly showed they fit in the international game, Josh Hart did everything the US asked, and Jalen Brunson and Anthony Edwards are among those who will get strong looks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never say no,\u201d said Bridges, who had a moment that\u2019ll go down in USA Basketball history \u2014 an intentional missed free throw and then a game-tying 3-pointer with 0.6 seconds left \u2014 to give the Americans a chance in the bronze-medal loss to Canada in Manila. \u201cIt\u2019s an honour, every time. Even though the outcome is not what we wanted, I wouldn\u2019t trade these six weeks, seven weeks away for nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And then it becomes a matter of how many NBA stars that didn\u2019t play this summer will want to play next summer on the bigger Olympic stage and give up six or seven weeks like Bridges and his teammates did this summer.<\/p>\n

There will be no shortage of options because the Olympics are more appealing to most US players than the World Cup is. More prestige, more attention, brighter lights, bigger stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve tried to do is really learn what wins a FIBA game,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cWe\u2019ve really studied everything about FIBA and the history of United States basketball. When we\u2019ve won, what has been the reason. When we\u2019ve lost, what has been the reason. We study all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is one big wild-card out there as well.<\/p>\n

Joel Embiid.<\/p>\n

The reigning NBA MVP is, in the international sense, a free agent. If he decides to play, and there\u2019s no reason to think otherwise, Embiid will be wearing red, white and blue next summer at the Paris Olympics. Those are the colours of the uniforms USA Basketball will be wearing. Those are also the colours of the uniforms France will be wearing.<\/p>\n

Embiid is a true rarity: He was born in Cameroon, has French citizenship and became a US citizen last year. And he\u2019s never played on a senior national team, so it's his call.<\/p>\n

The Americans want him. The French want him. What he decides will go a long way toward determining who wins gold in Paris.<\/p>\n

Let the recruiting begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just a day after Team USA left the Basketball World Cup without a medal, NBA superstars LeBron James and Stephen Curry, expressed interest in competing […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":330443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330441"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330446,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330441\/revisions\/330446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/330443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}