We fans will always have Paris.
This has been an Olympics to remember for hoop fans and USA Basketball, when a generation of all-time great players came together to have some fun, push each other and win gold. They did just that, beating France in dramatic fashion on Saturday.
For fans, it was a chance to savor watching these greats together one last time on an international stage. It was a chance to see them at their peak and working together in a way we all too rarely see (certainly not at the All-Star Game).
For the players, it was a chance to paint their legacies in gold.
That starts with Stephen Curry.
Even if he had stayed home this summer and worked on his golf handicap, Curry would have headed the Hall of Fame as the greatest shooter who ever lived. However, he would have entered the Hall with one hole in his resume, no gold medal. So this summer he went to Paris and, in the medal round, painted that legacy a sparkling gold.
Curry scored 60 points and hit 17 3-pointers across the final two games of the Paris Olympics, and the USA won the gold medal because of it.
His was just one of the legacies added to in Paris.
Kevin Durant came and made history. First he passed Lisa Leslie to become the all-time leading scorer in USA Basketball Olympic history. On top of that, he now has four gold medals — the most of any men’s Olympic basketball player ever.
Durant is a pure hooper; he simply loves basketball. He wants to be pushed, to be challenged, and playing for USA Basketball gives him that (especially in practice), so he kept coming back (he wouldn’t rule out a 2028 return).
Durant should be remembered as the greatest FIBA player ever.
LeBron James already had gold on his resume — a resume that already has him in the GOAT conversation. Yet he came to Paris at age 39 he was the tone setter and MVP of Team USA throughout the Paris Olympics.
LeBron finished the Olympics leading the USA with 14.2 points, 8.5 assists and 6.5 rebounds a game — he was the Olympics MVP.
Jrue Holiday joined Scottie Pippen as the only players to win an NBA title then an Olympic gold medal in the same year — twice. Holiday won gold in Tokyo after winning an NBA title with Milwaukee, and now the Celtics’ guard has done it again.
Team USA will be stacked with talent again in four years when the Olympics come to Los Angeles, but it will feel different. That will be a younger generation looking to make their mark on the international stage — and very likely having to get past Victor Wembanyama and France again to do it.
But that’s in the future.
The Paris Olympics let us bask in the glorious final run of one of the great generations of basketball players. Call this final run, their final years whatever you want…
But you’d better call them golden.
Source Agencies
