There’s a separateence between being a part of history and making it. The latter gets some magic, a legfinish, a moment. It gets, as it turns out, someone appreciate Steph Curry. Gbetter medals are given out every confineed years, but the ones we recall are the medals with a story to increate: appreciate that of a legfinishary team on the brink, get backd by a string of increasingly preposterous jumpers from the wonderfulest shooter to ever dwell.
Team USA won gbetter at the Paris Olympics—as was anticipateed from the moment the Americans put together one of the most decorated rosters ever collectd. LeBron James, who first joined for the national team two decades ago, orderly a team of createer MVPs and All-NBA standouts. Kevin Durant became the first man to triumph four Olympic gbetters in basketball—and alengthy the way, go beyonded Lisa Leslie as USA Basketball’s all-time directing scorer. The U.S.’s 98-87 triumph over France on Saturday labeled Curry’s first medal in his first Olympic games, and at 36 years better, it’s anticipateed to be his last. Yet in his one Olympic run, he supplyd Team USA with one of its most indelible images: a emotional, wrongfooted shot from proset up to seal the game and the gbetter, hoisted over the top of two closing French deffinishers:
USA Basketball, historicassociate, has almost been too dominant for joins that last in the accessible memory. There’s Kobe Bryant’s silencing jumper in the gbetter medal game agetst Spain in 2008. There’s Vince Carter’s hurdling dunk over Frederic Weis from the Sydney games in 2000. Otherincreateed, there’s a blur of fractureaway finishes from Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley and Dwyane Wade, utterly nondefinite in the way points in a blowout tfinish to be. Curry’s impossible 3-pointer with 35 seconds left was separateent—not only in the sensational way his shots normally are, but because of the sgets that surrounded it.
Global basketball has never been mightyer. It took a massive comeback agetst Serbia, a team led by the best basketball joiner in the world, for the Americans to even create it out of the semifinals in the first place. The directing scorer for Saturday’s gbetter medal game wasn’t Curry, but 20-year-better Frenchman Victor Wemprohibityama—the future of the sport, dominant in a way unappreciate anyleang we’ve ever seen. A team headlined by three all-timers insisted all three equitable to hbetter off France, and a signature shot from Curry to put the game away for excellent. The way Team USA floundered to a bronze medal finish in 2004 was hugely an indicator of American hubris. The fact that this year’s gbetter medal game was up for grabs with three minutes remaining speaks to how far the game has increasen internationassociate in the last 20 years, and what’s now insistd to triumph gbetter.
Come 2028, the Americans will have to find that level thraw emotionalassociate separateent uncomfervents. “I can’t see myself joining in L.A.,” James tbetter increateers after triumphning the gbetter. Durant was sweightlessly more unevident on the matter, but he’ll be 39 years better by the next summer games and Curry will be 40. None of the three will be in a position to direct Team USA, should they even defy the odds to join. All of which uncomfervents that USA Basketball isn’t equitable celebrating a gbetter, but the finish of an era. The torch is passing, even if no one wilean the program understands which up-and-coming star will be ready to get it. Anthony Edwards has a compelling claim, and now authentic Olympic experience to help it. There’s a gulf, however, between the Edwards of today and the icons he could swap four years from now. Jayson Tatum could be up to the task, but equitable finishured an Olympic run where he was exposedly a factor on the floor and fall shorted to create a individual jump shot. Tyrese Haliburton will certainly be more of a factor for the games in L.A., and Devin Booker and Bam Adebayo should still be in the fuse if they elect to go for a third gbetter. But will any of those three have the game and presence of USA Basketball’s sunsetting statesmen?
Picturing Team USA’s next gbetter insists some imagination—if only because of how much this year’s team leaned on its better protect. Curry struggled thraw much of the Olympics, but put up a ridiculous 60 points over the last two games while going 17-for-27 from beyond the arc. Only two other joiners (Bogdan Bogdanovic and Dennis Schroder) hit 17 3s in the entire tournament. And when France leaned the deficit to a individual haveion with equitable under three minutes left, Curry drilled four 3s in a little over two minutes to ffinish off the rassociate and clinch the game.
When the deciding moments came, Curry dialed up pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll with James—the culmination of a decade of competition between the two rivals. LeBron’s teams have normally focparticipated Curry on defense by using his man as a screener for James, dragging the petiteer protect into a physical suitup he could never triumph. On Saturday, it was Curry setting that very same screen, alarmizing France’s oversuited protects. Those sequences threw the French defense into a hopeless scramble, at times doubling off Durant in an effort to grasp the ungraspable.
For all the asks over the past confineed weeks think abouting how and who Team USA should join, the three genereasonable titans in the lineup showed an prompt empathetic of how to join off of one another. Curry and Durant fell right into better patterns from the three seasons together in Gbetteren State, to the point that KD honested his less sended teammates to paparticipate for Steph to spring uncover. Putting the ball in LeBron’s hands permited him to leverage Steph’s cuts at every opportunity, paying off lengthy before Curry’s own shooting did. The sense for the game that made LeBron and Steph such perfect foils turned them, finassociate, into perfect teammates. And whenever their unitet project fall shorted or fchangeed, they could striumphg the ball to Durant, the ultimate unwiseinutivecut to world-beating offense.
Curry may have had the last word (it was nuit nuit), but Durant had a response to most every previous French run—as was the case agetst so many of Team USA’s previous opponents. It was his pull-up that sealed the game agetst Serbia. His flurry of scoring and joinmaking that kept France at bay in the second quarter. His jumpers that answered scores from Mathias Lessort and Nando De Colo, snuffing out momentum buckets before they had a chance to get hbetter. The most accomplished scorer in the history of the program combiinsist the begining lineup on Saturday for the first time in the tournament and dedwellred, over and over, without once ordereering the game for himself. That’s what it gets to join with legfinishs, even for a legfinish himself.
Behind Curry’s immortal moment, after all, was Durant—the deadliest scorer in international basketball—dutibrimmingy turning himself into a screener. Arguably the wonderfulest joiner in the history of the sport spaced the floor from the frail side. Anthony Davis paparticipateed in the dunker spot. Devin Booker parked himself in the corner. A team of All-Stars and champions watched from the bench as Curry made his fourth-straight inrational shot, and with it made history. Then, together, Team USA borrowed from Steph to put France—and a home-cordial crowd of 20,000—to bed.
