In the 2023 FIBA World Cup, the United States’ Basketball Men’s National Team (USBMNT) placed fourth and did not receive a medal.
This resulted in profound backlash as, according to the FIBA World Rankings, the U.S. is regarded as the best country in the world for basketball. Some of the most popular backlash came from United States sprinter Noah Lyles.
“You know the thing that hurts me the most is that I have to watch the NBA Finals and they have ‘world champion’ on their head,” Lyles said in a press conference after his three dominant wins at the 2023 Budapest World Athletics Championships. “World champion of what? The United States? Don’t get me wrong, I love the U.S. – at times – but that ain’t the world.”
Although this is true regarding some sports, such as soccer and track and field, this logic doesn’t apply to basketball.
Basketball is a sport dominated by the United States. The best from all around the world come to play here, and on the world stage the U.S. has earned gold every year, other than 2004 in Athens when we won bronze.
That year, we did not send our best stars to Athens. The 2004 roster consisted of captains Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan, rookies Dwyane Wade, Lebron James and Carmelo Anthony along with many all-stars and Emeka Okafor, a college basketball player from UConn.
For obvious reasons, after 2004, the USBMNT did not allow collegiate athletes to participate in Olympic play.
In 2004, we did not send athletes such as Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Kevin Garnett or Shaquille O’Neal, who were all in their prime.
However, in 2008, the Redeem Team was formed and won gold with a more mature and logical team structure.
The team consisted of Captain Bryant, Wade, Chris Paul, James, Anthony and Chris Bosh.
This is considered one of the best Olympic basketball teams ever, behind only the 1992 Dream Team.
Since then, the United States has undeniably been the most dominant team in the Olympics. Most games have resulted in blowouts and in some years we only sent our “B” team since the superstars did not need to play in the Olympics for the dominance to occur.
The 2023 FIBA incident changed this trend, as we decided not to take this tournament as seriously as we should have.
In the last decade, an exponential number of international players have come into the league and played at an elite level. Some of these players are three-time MVP and NBA Champion Nikola Jokic from Serbia, two-time MVP and NBA Champion Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece, 2019 Rookie of the Year, five-time all-star and All-NBA First Team member Luka Dončić and young phenom Victor Wembanyama from France. This phenomenon forces the USBMNT to send their best players, as all countries have players who are more than able to give the U.S. a run for their money.
For this reason, when we sent our “C” team with only four all-stars in 2023, it was inevitable that we would not win gold.
Lyles’s comment after the USBMNT’s shortcomings came off as ignorant of the situation and the team’s history. This sparked the formation of a team arguably greater than the 1992 Dream Team.
The 2024 Olympic team consisted of captain, four-time MVP and four-time NBA Champion James, two-time MVP and four time-NBA Champion Stephen Curry, MVP and two-time NBA Champion Kevin Durant, reigning MVP Joel Embiid, Devin Booker and Anthony Edwards.
Due to the increased skill level for international teams, the games were closer than usual, but the U.S. still came away with a gold medal in a 98-87 win against France on the backs of the three best players of the recent generation, James, Curry and Durant.
Furthermore, the USBMNT is in good hands. It has been foreshadowed that the aforementioned trio will not play in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics; however, all-stars and champions such as Edwards, Tatum, Booker, Haliburton, Brunson and others have all been in the frontrunning for the 2028 Olympic team.
So, Noah Lyles, we are world champions and we will be until another country forms a team that is better than our best players and forms a league as dominant as the NBA.
