USA Basketball selects a pool of 41 players for the men’s Olympic team.
Joel Embiid, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant are among the 41 candidates from whom the 12-man U.S. Olympic basketball male team is anticipated to be selected.
James, who competed in the Olympics in 2004, 2008, and 2012, is 39 years old and has the potential to surpass Larry Bird’s record of 35 years (1992) as the oldest U.S. Olympic men’s basketball player.
Curry is the most accomplished American basketball player to have competed in an Olympics to date. Steve Kerr, his beloved Golden State Warriors head coach, is also on the United States national team’s coaching staff. Gregg Popovich was succeeded by Kerr following the Tokyo Olympics.
Curry declined to participate in the Tokyo Games to rest, Kerr stated in 2021. Two months before the Games in 2016, Curry withdrew from consideration for the 2016 Olympics, citing knee and ankle injuries, among other factors.
At the last three Olympics, Durant led the United States in points per game. In Tokyo, he surpassed Carmelo Anthony’s all-time Olympic points record for an American male.
Official announcements of the Olympic lineup will occur as the Paris Games approach on July 26. Changes may be made to the player pool.
Additionally, reigning NBA MVP Embiid is a member of the player pool. In October, he declared his intention to compete for the United States rather than his native Cameroon in France, both of which he is reportedly eligible to represent at the Olympics.
Draymond Green was not included in the player pool of notable individuals, but he and others remain eligible for inclusion. Only Green and Durant represented men on both the Rio as well as Tokyo squads.
It is worth noting that one individual from each of the previous two Olympic teams qualified despite not being included in the initial enlarged player pool.
Keldon Johnson was absent from both the February 2020 list of the 44 finalists and the March 2021 list of 57 candidates for the Tokyo competition.
The United States men have won four Olympic titles in a row. They suffered their first loss of the run in group play to France in Tokyo but rallied to defeat the French 87-82 within the gold medal match that was closest to their hearts in the Dream Team era.
A U.S. squad devoid of any former Olympians or All-NBA players finished fourth at the FIBA World Cup last summer, marking the first time in the 2004 Athens Olympics that a team lost three games at a global championship.
Additionally, on Tuesday, USA Basketball announced the addition of a pre-Olympic exhibition match against Canada in Las Vegas on July 10. This matchup will be a rematch of the 2010 World Cup bronze medal matchup that Canada won.
Draymond Green, who assisted the United States in securing gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and subsequently another title at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, was not included in the roster of 41 candidates announced by USA Basketball as potential members of the squad that will vie for a fifth consecutive gold medal in Paris this summer.
The naming of the pool is the initial official step in the process of assembling a 12-man Olympic roster, which will be supervised by Mark Few of Gonzaga and Steve Kerr of Golden State, with assistance from Erik Spoelstra of Miami, Tyronn Lue of the Los Angeles Clippers, and Mark Few of Gonzaga.
In the spring, the final decisions regarding team selection will likely be influenced by player health and the depth of their respective teams’ NBA playoff runs.
“Manipulating director of the men’s national team Grant Hill remarked, ‘The United States possesses extraordinary basketball talent, and I am ecstatic that so many of the game’s superstars have expressed interest in serving our country during the 2024 Olympic Summer Games.'”
“The process of selecting the team that will assist us in reclaiming the Olympic podium is an honorable one.
We are looking forward to the commencement of national team activity in the coming months, during which this difficult process will unfold.