Los Angeles Lakers superstar big man Anthony Davis is set to help Team USA compete for the gold medal in the 2024 Summer Olympics just weeks from now. Team USA is coming off a dismal performance in last summer’s FIBA World Cup in which it failed to win a medal, and shortly afterward, Davis and several other veteran superstars signaled that they wanted to head to Paris this summer to help the United States regain the gold medal.
Davis first competed in the Olympics in 2012 before he had ever played a single NBA game. That June, he was the No. 1 pick in the draft by the then-New Orleans Hornets, and he teamed up with LeBron James and the late Kobe Bryant to lead the United States to a gold medal in London.
Those Olympics allowed Davis to start to form a relationship with Bryant. He said on the “Visit the Lobby” podcast that the five-time NBA champion helped teach him how to be a true professional (h/t Lakers Nation).
“But back to the Kobe thing, saw him get up getting up early every morning to work out. Shot with him, we lifted weights together so for me it was like, ‘Oh, this is how you train.’ He showed me how to be a professional which…I’m 19. We go to dinner, we in Spain, Barcelona, and they’re like, ‘Team dinner.’ So in college, if we say dinner, we come in sweats. I come to dinner in sweats and I walk in and [they’re dressed up] to the T. Andre Iguodala got a white scarf on but slacks and like everybody is dressed. And they pulled me to the side and say, ‘Hey young fella, don’t come…’ but then again, I ain’t go no money I can’t afford that. I mean I can, but it’s like I didn’t bring nothing. I don’t know. So now I always ask what kind of dinner is it. Is sweats cool or…but most of the time I’m gonna throw something on.
“But they just told me and showed me how to be professional, how to work, what it means to actually work hard and work ethic. Just watching that from afar and then just being around him gaining that knowledge and mentorship there was nothing you couldn’t even put into words because no other rookie besides Christian Laettner has done it. Instead of going to summer league, I get to soak up this knowledge. I was ahead of the curve.”
Davis has been criticized by many for allegedly being lazy, soft and unmotivated. But this season may have been his best yet. He played in a career-high 76 games while averaging 24.7 points, 12.6 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.3 blocked shots per game.
He was rewarded by being named to the All-Defensive First Team and the All-NBA Second Team. It was the first time he had been named to any of the All-Defensive or All-NBA teams since the 2019-20 campaign.
