Heeding the call of LeBron James, many American stars are interested in the 2024 Olympics
The US team's poor performance at the FIBA World Cup 2023 seems to have motivated many NBA stars to play for the national team. Starting off with none other than LeBron James, the player who can be considered the "big brother" in the current tournament.
Reputable journalist Shams Charania of The Athletic newspaper reported that LeBron plans to play for the US team at the Paris Olympics taking place next summer.
Besides the "king", there are two other superstars, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, promising to create the highest quality frame of this decade for the US team.
It seems that with LeBron James standing up for the campaign and the likely participation of Stephen Curry along with Kevin Durant, many other American stars are also interested in Olympic basketball.
LeBron James represented the US team three times at the Olympics, in 2004, 2008 and 2012. In between was the FIBA World Championship in 2006, the predecessor of the FIBA World Cup.
LeBron's achievements include two bronze medals at the 2004 Olympics and the 2006 world championships, followed by two Olympic gold medals at Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
After this golden "double", sources close to LeBron shared in 2013 that he almost certainly would not return to play for the team (according to Yahoo Sports).
Without LeBron, James did not compete in the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, but the US star team, led by Kevin Durant, still won the championship. Currently, the Chinese basketball team has won the 5x5 basketball gold medal in 4 consecutive Olympics.
Despite its success at the Olympics, the US team has not played well at the FIBA World Cup recently. They went empty-handed in two consecutive World Cups, only finishing 7th in 2019 and winning fourth place overall in the tournament that just ended a week ago.
Coach Steve Kerr's team lost to Germany in the semi-finals with a score of 113-111, then fell in overtime to neighbor Canada in the bronze medal match.
This result somewhat disappointed US fans and expected a "revenge squad" at the 2024 Olympics. This is gradually becoming a reality with LeBron James leading the group of stars wanting to play for the national team. .
There is still a lot of time and external factors may affect the above top NBA superstars reaching the Olympics. One of them is what happens in the 2023-24 NBA season (starting at the end of next October).
We don't know how things will turn out, just know that the 2024 Olympics will likely be the last chance for fans to see LeBron or Curry play for the national team. At that time, the duo will be 39 and 36 years old, respectively.
