Standing in front of his Team USA teammates and coaches, Steph Curry delivered unforgettable news less than a week before the opening ceremonies at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.
“You get to wave the flag in Paris, my man,” Curry said to a crowded room where his message was meant for one person only.
LeBron James, as voted by his fellow American Olympians, will be the United States’ male flag-bearer during Friday’s opening ceremonies, making him the first player from Team USA Men’s Basketball to receive the honor. Anthony Davis sat to James’ right where he was surrounded by a fleet of stars and future Hall of Famers. The faces were aplenty but aside from three, the rest of the room might as well have been empty.
As Curry addressed the group, a direct line could be drawn from himself to James and behind him to Kevin Durant. It was Durant who first congratulated James, getting him to turn over his left shoulder and dap the man who once was his ultra supervillain, sinking shots in the NBA Finals over him while wearing the same jersey colors as Curry. It was Curry and James’ Finals foe for four straight years whose origin stories both began at the same Akron hospital, who nominated him to make more history.
His reasoning was about far more than a never-ending list of basketball accomplishments.
There will be times in Paris when younger players like Anthony Edwards, Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum and others will shine brightest as the newest faces of the NBA for upcoming years. Not yet though. This is all about three names: Curry, Durant and James, the three faces of a generation of basketball fans getting a chance to play together one first and final time for something that means more than the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
They rightfully chose the correct rep to be the face of our country in unprecedented times, too.
“It was never a thought, it was never a dream, but it’s an absolute honor,” James said. “To be able to share that moment with you guys is going to make it even more memorable. I just appreciate it, man. Team USA has given so much to all of us, to me over the last 20 years.
“I understand right now in a country that’s so divided, I hope this moment and that moment will unite us or bring us together, even for those split seconds, those hours that we travel across the water in Paris. I will hold that responsibility with a lot of honor.”
Curry is playing in his first Olympics. A gold for Durant would give him four in the Olympics, making him the first for Team USA to ever reach that number. James is aiming for his third gold and fourth Olympic medal, 20 years after his debut which ended in disappointment.
That was all the way back in 2004, the summer after James’ rookie year with the Cleveland Cavaliers when he still was a teenager at 19 years old. Team USA lost for the third, fourth and fifth time ever in the Olympics, coming back home with a bronze, a reward that felt more like a blue yogurt lid held together by staples than something to wear with respect. He then won gold with Team USA in 2008 and 2012, and hasn’t been back to the Olympics since.
Yet as someone who is entering his 22nd NBA season, James somehow was Team USA’s best chance at winning before the games begin to truly matter.
A historically embarrassing upset to South Sudan was evaded because James putting his head down and playing pure bully ball was too much to stop, scoring the game-winning basket with eight seconds left in a one-point win. Team USA completed a comeback win days later against a Germany team eyeing the medal stand by once again being an unstoppable force, scoring the USA’s final 11 points in the final four minutes and 20 seconds, outscoring Germany single-handedly by three.
Off the court, he became a business. LeBron James Enterprises. He’s the NBA’s first billionaire, and he’s still worth so much as a player and asset that his son is now his teammate.
Michael Jordan was 29 in 1992 when the Dream Team forever changed Team USA Men’s Basketball and the globalization of the game. So was Charles Barkley. Scottie Pippen was 26 and Chris Mullin was 28.
The Dream Team’s oldest player was Larry Bird, who had just completed his 13th and final NBA season at 35 years old. Their second-oldest superstar was Magic Johnson at 32, who aside from that year’s All-Star Game, had recently retired from basketball after announcing he was HIV-positive in November 1991. Clyde Drexler and John Stockton were the only other players at least 30 years old.
James will be 40 at the end of December. Father Time has taken seconds, minutes and a few hours from The King. Wearing the three letters of U-S-A across his chest one last time, his clock keeps ticking.
Curry was the perfect person to nominate James as the United States’ flag-bearer. A smiling Durant completed the trio’s celebration. Stans of both can put their allegiance to the side in knowing LeBron’s last Olympic lap on behalf of the country at large is a crowning achievement meant for the Chosen One cosplaying as Captain America in a No. 6 uniform.
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