LeBron James and Team USA basketball are currently dominating the Olympics in Paris thus far, moving to 3-0 in the official tournament on Saturday with a dominant win vs Puerto Rico. Although Team USA had some shaky performances in the friendly competitions over the past couple weeks, it seems that they have turned things up several notches now that the actual Olympics are underway.
There has been chatter ever since this iteration of the team was announced that it could be among the greatest teams that Team USA has ever put together, and one subscriber to that notion is none other than Golden State Warriors power forward Draymond Green, who himself won Olympics gold in 2016 and recently asserted that James and teammate Kevin Durant are two of the greatest Olympians ever.
“(Kevin Durant) and (LeBron), what they are doing from a statistical standpoint, if they win this gold medal, you have to ask yourself the question, are they the greatest Olympians from a basketball perspective in the history of Team USA? And the answer to that question is yes, they are, along with Carmelo Anthony,” said Green, via The Volume on X, formerly Twitter. “People tend to forget fast what Melo did on Team USA. Bronze medal, gold, gold, gold. So Melo is 1000 percent in that category, along with KD, along with Bron… they don't have to close out the gold medal and they're still the greatest Olympian basketball players that we've had in our program.”
Where does this Team USA iteration rank all time?
The most obvious comparison that most pundits have hurled at this version of Team USA is to the 1992 Dream Team, which featured the likes of Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and many other Hall of Famers. That team absolutely decimated the competition en route to the Gold Medal, although it should be noted that there was hardly any NBA talent that they faced vs any other national team, whereas the 2024 Team USA squad is facing in many cases several solid NBA players every time they step on the floor.
Of course, just as there is no answer to the LeBron vs Jordan debate, there will be no definitive answer to the 1992 vs 2024 Team USA debate. In order to even make it a conversation, this Team USA squad will need to close out the gold medal.
They will look to embark on August 6 in the quarterfinals of the Olympics.
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