Team USA kicks off action in the Olympics on Sunday against Serbia
The men’s Olympic basketball tournament is underway, as the action is getting started this weekend in France. Team USA men’s basketball is going for its fifth gold medal in a row, and the Americans have brought a star-studded roster to Paris to face some strong competition. Team USA — which went unbeaten in five tune-up games — will be in Group C, along with Serbia, Puerto Rico, and South Sudan. The United States — the favorite to win gold again — automatically qualified for the Paris Olympics by finishing as one of the top two countries in the Americas zone at the FIBA World Cup last summer.
The Americans beat Canada, Australia, Serbia, South Sudan, and Germany in their exhibition schedule, but there were more close calls than expected. That includes a one-point win on July 20 against South Sudan, as Team USA needed a game-winning lay-up from LeBron James to avoid a massive upset. James came to the rescue again against Germany two days later in a four-point win.
The men’s tournament began on July 27, with Team USA opening with a win over Serbia on Sunday.
Team USA has its most stacked roster in quite some time for the 2024 Olympic Games. But it’s a roster that no longer features Kawhi Leonard. The Clippers star withdrew from the Olympics on July 10, and in a statement, Team USA said it determined with the Clippers that sitting out the Paris Olympics was in Leonard’s “best interest.” Leonard missed the end of the regular season and most of the playoffs with a right knee injury. Derrick White was selected for Leonard’s open roster spot and the champion Celtics now account for three of the 12 roster spots on Team USA.
Team USA will be led by Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, as well as Gonzaga head coach Mark Few, Clippers coach Ty Lue, and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra as assistants.
As the Olympics get underway, here’s all the information you need to know about Team USA’s roster, schedule, and outlook for the defending world champions.
Team USA men’s basketball roster
Team USA 2024 Olympics schedule
Team USA Basketball exhibition results
Team USA outlook
The United States has won 16 gold medals at the Olympics and has captured nothing less than gold since 2004. The Americans enter every Olympic Games as the heavy favorites, and for good reason. They field the best players every four years, and despite putting together a team on a short timespan they still typically manage to bulldoze the competition every four years. But Team USA isn’t infallible. In each of the two last FIBA World Cup appearances, the U.S. failed to medal, placing fourth last summer and an even more shocking seventh-place finish in 2019. Granted, those teams did not boast the best talent the United States has to offer, but it’s proof that you can’t just throw anyone out there with hopes of beating the rest of the world.
But the 2024 Olympic roster is perhaps the best collection of talent the United States has fielded since the 2008 Redeem Team, which was built to avenge a bronze medal finish at the 2004 Games. We’ll get Stephen Curry in his first Olympics ever. Probably the last Olympic appearance from LeBron James, the debut of Joel Embiid, who Team USA was hotly recruiting to join instead of going with France or Cameroon. And peppered in there is a nice blend of older talent like Kevin Durant, Jrue Holiday and Anthony Davis, mixed with the next generation of American stars like Anthony Edwards, Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton.
However, the field at the 2024 Olympics features some of the best international players that will all be chomping at the bit to try and knock the Americans off. Canada has the second-best collection of NBA talent behind the United States, and could very well meet the U.S. in the gold medal match. The same is true of France, which will have Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert patrolling the frontcourt. Even in Team USA’s own group, the team will have to face reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokic and Serbia, which finished second at last summer’s World Cup. And then there’s Puerto Rico, which earned a berth to the Olympics for the first time since 2004. The last time Puerto Rico were there, the country handed Team USA a shocking loss in the group stage, which sent the Americans on a spiral that resulted in a bronze medal finish.
The Americans will certainly be favored in every matchup, but they can’t afford to take any opponent lightly as there’s NBA players on nearly every roster heading to Paris. The biggest weakness for Team USA will be figuring out how to play together on both sides of the floor. They have training camp and five tune-up games to build chemistry, but it’s always a little clunky when you have 12 guys who are not used to playing together.
