Where Does Team USA Basketball Go From Here?

Steph Curry and Team USA Basketball did it, but at what cost? #nba
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If the world is catching up, or quite literally caught up as we saw when Serbia had our backs against the wall and before these olympics, several people called this version of USA as the best US olympic team in history, at least on paper, we are barely keeping top dog status. Durant specifically said, But Next Olympics, Curry and Durant might still be there, but uhhh not sure,

LeBron might be retired…**look he should be I don’t know,** man’s the best player on the the team right now. And that’s amazing, but also a problem.

Several players agreed to play this Olympics heavily off of the fact that other higher profile players were playing. LeBron was recruiting a year ago, LeGM and Noah Lyles.

And we fell in this cycle before. In 1988, we got a bronze medal in basketball, the lowest finish in our history, and then we said nahhh we ain’t going out like this and sent NBA players, the dream team. But then we got complacent. After a 6th place medal in 2002, in 2003 they won the America cup but in 2004, only 3 athletes returned and as a result, we saw LeBron, Wade, Melo all get called up when they were not ready.

But perhaps more importantly than that, Team USA needs to take the world seriously. *Basketball isn’t just America’s sport anymore and we should treat it as such, just as we tried to this year. But there’s a better way of going about it.* The best players in the NBA under 30 are international players. Now you have players like Anthony Edwards, Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton, Devin Booker, and Bam that still can be in their prime in time for next Olympics. We need to play together in FIBA, introduce glue pieces, hone in chemistry. Instead of antagonizing Tatum, we’re going to need him. We need to motivate them to continue, otherwise we’re getting recked.

But I’m excited to see where the world will be in 4 years.