Olympic basketball Dream Team: scary and very scary

Paris, Jul 28 (Prensa Latina) It's scary and very scary, it's better to avoid euphemisms when talking about the US basketball Dream Team in its version of LeBron James and Stephen Curry, who are having so much fun that they already look like having their gold medals hanging from their necks from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

July 28, 2024
15:42

By Fausto Triana, special correspondent

There are so many names that when they come together on the court, they literally frighten. Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid, Jrue Holiday, Anthony Davis, Anthony Edwards, Devin Booker, Haliburton, White, Adebayo, etc. A few minutes of LeBron and Curry, and the magic formula is served.

Asterix and Obelix of the most dynamic of sports, but Americans showing off on French courts with nods to excellence. LeBron and Curry don’t need much time to disarm their rival, as they did against Nikola Jokic’s Serbia, absolutely devastated to suffer a resounding 110-84 without breaking a sweat.

They haven’t said it, although the atmosphere is filled with the desire of this new version of the Dream Team to surpass the first and most memorable, with everlasting stars from Barcelona 1992, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, Scottie Pippen, Magic Johnson (…).

However, the preliminaries of recent years are what they are and in the Games and in Tokyo, the United States was 10 points behind Spain in the quarterfinals; then in the semifinals by 15 against Australia and in the grand final it beat France by just five points. All this happened with the former player and successful coach of the Golden State Warriors, Steve Keer, in charge of the troops. In Paris, he seeks to instill collective spirit among a handful of stars full of virtues.

Tatum, Durant, Booker, Holiday and Adebayo are back. The ambition seems intact, but neither will the opponents make it easy. Australia, Canada and Germany have arguments to fight, and obviously France, Olympic runner-up in Tokyo, wants to make it difficult for them.

The issue is in the depth of the Dream Team, which is not the same in the host team, led by the NBA rookie of the year, Victor Wembanyama, Rudy Gobert, Evan Fournier, as well as the veteran Nicolas Batum.

Greece, even with Giannis Antetokounmpo, is not enough, Germany, with Dennis Schroeder, Daniel Theis, along with Franz and Mo Wagner inspires respect.

As for the rest, we cannot rule out the Australians, with veteran Patty Mills at the head, Daniels, Green Ingles and Giddey, all NBA players; and the Canadians with Alexander-Walker, Barrett, Brooks, Dort and Murray, perhaps the largest rosters capable of resisting the Dream Team.

However, LeBron, Durant and Curry, along with the rest of a gang of true basketball giants, seem determined to set the standard in Paris 2024.

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