Team USA men's basketball just brought perhaps its most talented basketball roster to the Olympics since the 1992 Dream Team...
and it easily could have finished without a gold medal. Had Serbia not gone cold from deep in the fourth quarter, Team USA likely would have been capped at bronze in the 2024 Paris Games. Even after winning gold on Saturday against France , it wasn't without some degree of controversy.
Jayson Tatum was held out of both games against Serbia. Joel Embiid was held out of the South Sudan game. Finding enough minutes for all of those superstars proved impossible.
So what's the lesson here? Talent alone does not guarantee Team USA the gold. That will be especially true starting in 2028, when the best American players ( LeBron James , Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry ) have presumably aged out of international competition. The days of simply rolling out 12 All-Stars and waltzing to gold are probably gone.
Team USA will always have the deepest team in the field, of course, but the goal now should be to build a cohesive roster. So let's look ahead to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and try to pick a roster that makes sense as Team USA goes for its sixth consecutive gold medal. We will be doing so with the following parameters: For now, we are assuming anyone who will be 34 or older in 2028 is probably done playing for Team USA.
This eliminates James, Curry, Durant, Joel Embiid, Jrue Holiday , Anthony Davis and Derrick White from this year's team. Among superst.