Last month, LeBron James and Team USA won the gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics with a win over France in the final round of the tournament. It wasn't as easy of a road as many predicted it would be for Team USA, who had to survive several close calls, but ultimately, America was able to add yet another gold medal to its Olympics collection.
James was the only member of this year's Team USA squad, which has since become known as “The Avengers,” to also be a member of 2008's Redeem Team, which won Gold at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, redeeming the team's 2004 Bronze medal finish in Greece.
Another member of that 2008 squad was former NBA All-Star Dwight Howard, who recently took to Gilbert Arenas' Gil's Arena Show podcast to compare the two squads.
“I'm going with our team,” said Howard. “We've got a prime Kobe, we've got LeBron, we've got bald head D Wade. I'll go '08. We were young. You're talking about LeBron at 23? Me, I'm 22. Melo at 24? Chris Bosh at 24? Oh my Gosh.”
Indeed, the United States dominated the Olympics in 2008, not really having to encounter any close calls, at least not nearly as close at the 17 point deficit they had to overcome in this year's semifinal game vs the Serbian National Team.
Where does the 2024 Team USA squad rank all time?
Many consider to be the greatest Team USA squad ever assembled to be the 1992 Dream Team, which dominated the Olympics and won gold. By name recognition alone, those people may have an argument, as icons like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, and more all suited up that year. However, it's important to note that both Bird and Johnson were well past their primes at this point–in fact, Bird had already retired, and Johnson would only have one more brief stint with the Lakers later on in the 1990s. That Team USA iteration also played against an international landscape that featured virtually zero NBA talent, a far cry from what we see today.
This 2024 squad also clearly featured a plethora of talent–if a player like Jayson Tatum, who just was the best player on an NBA championship team, has nights where he can't even crack the rotation, then you've got quite the team on your hands.
Of course, there will never be a clear answer to who was actually the “best” Team USA squad was, but it's still clearly an entertaining debate to have.
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