On paper, the U.S. Olympic men’s team looks like one of the best collections of talent since 1992, The Athletic’s Joe Vardon writes while pondering the team’s upside.
“I don’t know if Magic, Michael and Larry, if they coined that [nickname] themselves and walked around calling themselves the Dream Team or if that was the nickname that fans and media gave them, [but] I feel like we’re going to have the same vibe,” Stephen Curry said of how this year’s team compares to the Dream Team.
The Americans certainly looked the part in their blowout win over Serbia on Sunday, but it wasn’t smooth sailing up to that point. The U.S. almost lost to Germany and South Sudan in consecutive exhibition games. As Vardon writes, it’s a testament to how the talent around the world has grown. When the 1992 team competed, only nine other players outside of the U.S. team were in the NBA. This year, an Olympic-record 47 athletes are in the NBA and 35 more have at least some league experience.
“It’s the strongest field ever,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr said. “The game gets better and better globally, more and more NBA players, but also teams are more and more comfortable playing against us, and so we know that every game’s going to be difficult and we have to prepare for that and be ready because these teams are coming after us.”
While the Americans look like the favorite for the gold medal, Vardon cautions that it’s far from a guarantee. In a similar piece, The Ringer’s Michael Pina writes that Team USA’s low three-point rate is seemingly one of the team’s only weaknesses.
We have more from the U.S. Olympic team:
- Kevin Durant‘s near-perfect game against Serbia highlighted their 110-84 win. LeBron James‘ 23-point, nine-assist and seven-rebound game showed that the U.S. team should continue to rely on its older guys, Jason Jones of The Athletic writes in a takeaways piece from the first game. Jones also contemplates whether Joel Embiid should continue to start, writing that Kerr may simply just like the effective frontcourt pairing of Bam Adebayo and Anthony Davis off the bench. Jones also observes Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton picking up DNPs in the first game and ponders if Kerr’s rotation choices will be consistent or fluctuate on a matchup basis.
- Embiid had a rough showing in his first official Team USA outing, Mike Sielski of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes. He finished with four points and two rebounds in just over 11 minutes and didn’t seem 100%. His decision to play for Team USA over France earned him boos from the crowd in Paris and Sielski wonders — even if he was hampered with an injury or illness — if adapting his game benefits either him or his team. Embiid is one of the best players in the world but he has always been the featured player on his teams and may be taking more of a backseat on the Olympic squad, Sielski writes.
- Jrue Holiday and Derrick White played similar roles in the team’s first game as they do for the reigning-champion Celtics, Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe writes. Both players complement star-filled rosters on either team and often take the task of guarding the opposing team’s best player. “It makes it easy for me and Jrue,” White said. “We just try to go out there and do what we do and try to help us impact winning whenever we can. I know we’ve got a lot of talented guys on the team.”