It's the laugh. The laugh just never gets old.
It's been almost six years now since Kawhi Leonard, while taking questions during his introductory press conference with the Toronto Raptors, revealed to the world that despite his stoic nature both on and off the court, behind the scenes, he's actually just a fun guy who loves basketball. The loving basketball part was believable. After all, Kawhi already had a Finals MVP and two Defensive Player of the Year awards to his name, and those are not the accomplishments of someone who simply tolerates the game of basketball. But the fun guy part, well that seemed like a little bit of a stretch.
Little did we know, Kawhi Leonard was not yanking our collective chain or exaggerating on his fun guy claim. Since then, a number of his teammates and players around the league have spoken up about Kawhi's dry sense of humor and comedic timing, including Clippers teammates Paul George and Terrence Mann, who swapped Kawhi stories on a podcast last summer. Now, you can add Anthony Davis and Anthony Edwards, Leonard's Team USA teammates, to the list of players who Kawhi has had in stitches.
Hopefully, Kawhi Leonard isn't distracting his Team USA teammates with his sense of humor too much, because even though this year's Olympic team is as stacked as we've seen this century, the rest of the world continues to catch up to Team USA by the year.
Can anyone stop Team USA?
The likely answer to this question is “no,” and that's exactly what the bookmakers would tell you too. As things stand right now, Team USA is a substantial -390 favorite to return from Paris with the Gold Medal, but as recent tournaments have proven, the rest of the world isn't going to go down without a fight.
In Team USA's preliminary round group are Puerto Rico, South Sudan, and a Serbian team that has the third best odds (+1000) to win the tournament. Serbia not only features three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, but an entire starting five — Vasilije Micic, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Aleksej Pokusevski, and Nikola Jovic — that has NBA experience. Once Team USA gets out of group play, it's not as if things will get any easier.
From there, Kawhi Leonard and Team USA could find themselves in a situation where their path to a Gold Medal includes matchups with Spain, Canada, Greece, Germany, or of course, France, the host nation of the 2024 Olympic Games and the home country of Victor Wembanyama, the league's reigning Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year runner-up, and Face of the NBA in waiting. And as is the cost for most international teams, France's roster is stacked with players who have NBA talent, including Rudy Gobert, Evan Fournier, Nic Batum, and Bilal Coulibaly.
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