Kevin Durant was playing in the USA vs. Serbia men’s basketball game in Lille, France, on Sunday afternoon. With 2 minutes, 33 seconds left in the first quarter, his team needed a boost. Serbia was leading 20-14, and the U.S. men, considered the gold medal favorites, were making sloppy mistakes on both ends of the court.
The all-time leading scorer in U.S. men’s basketball, who missed the team’s five pre-Olympic warm-up games because of a calf injury, was looking to turn the tide of the game in front of a sold-out crowd of 27,000 at Pierre Mauroy Stadium, which normally plays host to soccer games. It was fitting, as the game felt more like a World Cup soccer game for both teams than a run-of-the-mill Olympic group stage opener, with the international crowd wearing a colorful tapestry of various NBA and national team jerseys in honor of their favorite players, and fans singing and waving flags.
Durant hadn’t played in a public competitive game since his Phoenix Suns NBA season ended in late April with a first-round playoff swept by the Minnesota Timberwolves, but that’s OK. He made a three-pointer within 15 seconds of the game. Anthony Edwards made one, and Durant made another before the end of the first quarter to give the U.S. a 25-20 lead. In the second quarter, he made six shots of varying difficulty in a row. A Serbian defender blocking Durant’s mid-range jump shot? Bang. Reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokic contesting Durant’s corner three-pointer? Durant made it anyway. When KD made another just before halftime, the U.S. led 58-49 and Durant’s stats were ridiculous. In just nine minutes of playing time, he shot a perfect 8-of-8 from the field and scored 21 points.
“There’s nothing surprising about what he’s doing,” Durant’s former Golden State Warriors teammate and Olympic rookie Stephen Curry said after the game.
The USA kept up their momentum in the second half, outshooting Serbia, 110-84, despite Jokic’s 20 points, eight assists, five rebounds and four steals. (The game between Serbia and the USA was tied while Jokic was on the field; during his nine minutes on the bench, the USA outscored Serbia by 26 points.) Durant finished with 23 points, and LeBron James added 21 points to go with nine assists and seven rebounds.
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Expectations are higher than usual for this U.S. Men’s Olympic Basketball team, as fans and pundits look to them as the true successor to the Dream Team, the 1992 U.S. squad that featured legends like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. The Dream Team’s victory in Barcelona undoubtedly spurred the global growth showcased in Lille, but this is the right mix of prestige and up-and-coming star power of any U.S. Olympic team since the Dream Team, and they will be revered for generations to come. James, Durant and Curry are this century’s Magic, Michael and Larry.
Fans can shout forever about which trio is better, but both have inspired legions of fans around the world.
On Sunday morning, Guillermo Castroconde, a Dr Pepper sales manager from Omaha, waited for a train at Gare du Nord, among hundreds of basketball fans who had come to watch the game. A die-hard James fan, the 33-year-old came all the way from Nebraska because this is his dream team. “I can’t miss this game,” he said. “I wasn’t there when Jordan was playing. I don’t want to regret it 30 years from now.”
At a hotel near Lille’s central train station, a security-barrier-enclosed crowd on a normally quiet street might lead one to assume that French President Emmanuel Macron or someone of that nature was staying there. But a quick scan of the basketball attire told me otherwise. This must be where the U.S. team is holed up. A young boy in a James Lakers jersey was sitting on his father’s shoulders, high above the crowd. Another boy was perched on his father’s shoulders a few rows back. For balance, he was wearing a Golden State Warriors Curry uniform.
Maria Delcheva, a 23-year-old Domino’s Pizza manager, traveled alone from Sofia, Bulgaria, to Paris to watch the USA play Serbia. “It was my dream to come to Paris and see Stephen Curry play,” she said. “So, I win.” Waiting to enter the stadium about two hours before kickoff, she found herself in the front row among a throng of hundreds, maybe thousands, of basketball fans. She wouldn’t reveal exactly how much she spent to get there. “It was quite expensive,” she said.
The Americans fed off that energy. “It was phenomenal,” James said after the game. “Sitting there and listening to the anthem and hearing the fans roar, I was definitely a little nervous. My stomach was in tugs of war. It just felt different.”
“I looked around and saw so many different NBA jerseys in the stands and I just love that the game of basketball can bring together people from all over the world and from all different walks of life,” Durant said.
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The crowd got exactly what they expected: a little bit of everything: Durant’s explosiveness, James’s all-around brilliance and ability to score around defenses, and Curry’s three 3-pointers (including his trademark lookaway routine at the end of the game). Edwards, the NBA’s most mesmerizing aerialist right now, caught an alley-oop from James. Derrick White, a relative role player, got his act together with two steals.
The U.S., which plays South Sudan in a pool match on Wednesday, has such a strong roster that All-NBA First Team selection Jayson Tatum, fresh off a championship with the Boston Celtics, didn’t even play in the game. Joel Embiid, the 2023 NBA MVP, was booed relentlessly by French fans every time he touched the ball. (Embiid chose to play for the U.S. instead of France in these Olympics.) He didn’t make much of an impact in his limited time, but that didn’t really matter.
After the game, U.S. coach Steve Kerr didn’t have much to say about Durant being established as the sixth man throughout the Olympic tournament. But given his performance off the bench tonight, Kerr should probably stick with what’s working until further notice. Durant isn’t worried about the idea. “I told coach, whatever they need me to do, I’m open to whatever it is and I’m willing to adapt to whatever it is. It’s always fun trying to find a new role. I’ll just adapt to what the game brings to me.”
KD took just one shot from the field in the second half, a mid-range shot from the corner that ended his perfect night. “Yeah, it’s awesome,” Durant said after the game. “It felt awesome to let it go.”
That’s the only thing Miss America is willing to accept.