All Tomorrow’s Parties

“A lot of bullshit happens in this country. But a lot of great things happen, too.” – Kevin Durant, speaking in Paris. Not initially sure which country he’s referring to, between the host and his own; anyway, he’s right.

Aligning to an almost suspiciously delicious degree, the men’s gold medal basketball game at the Olympics featured so much of basketball’s recent past and present meeting the one guy everybody agrees is basketball’s near, if not immediate, future. In the advent of professionals playing these games, this has become an expectation, but it rarely squares the circle the way it did on Saturday, when the US beat France in the final, by a chillingly closer than it should’ve been 98-87.

Fresh off a Rookie of the Year and borderline-Defensive Player of the Year campaign, Victor Wembanyama has been the face of L’Equipe de France de basketball at these Games, but on the court he has mostly been relegated to cleanup defensive work and the occasional playmaking from the elbow, à la Nikola Jokić[1]. In his stead, the faces that have popped are ones you might know: Evan Fournier, Nic Batum, Guerschon Yabusele, Frank Ntilikina(!!).

Team USA, one comprising perhaps the best gathering of NBA players since at least the Dream Team[2], has the one-time trident of LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry. Any team featuring those three guys working in tandem should be enough to win.

Old, meet new: Anthony Edwards entered the Games expecting to be The Guy, because he always has been and, for the most part for teams he plays on going forward, always will be. The minutes stuff around Joel Embiid and Jayson Tatum in the earlier rounds ended up being overblown. Ant worked around a lot of that in the second unit; I fully expect him to dress down various Timberwolves next season with something along the lines of, “This ain’t how they do it in FIBA.”

A few kerfuffles set the tone: Ant in the first quarter, Devin Booker variously throughout the game. Skirmishes broke out on a couple of occasions, and the FIBA refs left the players to their ends. Ant finished an alley-oop from Kevin Durant in the third quarter that, while disrespectful, was also necessary, given France was within single digits.

Four threes in something like 2:20 from Steph at the end closed it: he’s had a few, but this is his Olympic moment. It’s his first, and – say it with me – likely last time on Team USA’s Olympic offering. Jrue Holiday worked his way onto this team. He ended up being necessary. Steph was always meant for this[3].

It’s as likely as not that Wemby will be the best player in the NBA as soon as this season. Somehow, that stands true for Steph Curry. For a nearly-(you know about how many years, even if you don’t know exactly)-LeBron James to hang onto this team, publicly chastise the Lakers re: his immediate opportunities to win anything meaningful, and then body Big Vic when the time came?

Maybe we still do build things in this country. Maybe it doesn’t look like it used to; catch up. France certainly is. In the meantime, Team USA’s bona fides stand. LeBron->KD->Steph, for three: how lucky are we?

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[1] He of the recently-acquired bronze medal, having defeated Germany in the third place game earlier in the day on Saturday.

[2] Here’s the thing about that: every team since the Dream Team has not yielded a college player. They had Laettner, whom everyone on every subsequent team would attack relentlessly in the eternally theoretical Team-X vs. Team-Y battle. Laettner is one of, if not the, greatest college basketball player ever; also, Shaq should’ve been on the Dream Team, but hindsight is 20/20. As it is, that Dream Team will always have a weak link meant for exploitation. Whether Jordan’s raw hubris is enough to overcome this is the better question, given how much he hated that guy.

[3] Editorializing to the most: Steph Curry is at least an equivalent to all of these people: George Mikan; Bob Pettit; Connie Hawkins; Julius Erving; Larry Bird; Michael Jordan; Reggie Miller; and Ray Allen. He’s the one who pushed shooting to its absolute most following a lot of stretching out games from all of the people on this list. Part of me thinks Wilt’s 100-point game earns a slot because he was trash at shooting outside the paint, but he did it well in that game. The QR code to talk about this will follow in the email newsletter.