The US men’s basketball team won their fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal in a thrilling rematch with host nation France at the Paris Olympics, pitting dynastic NBA superstars LeBron James and Stephen Curry together for the first and likely last time over the ascendant Frenchman Victor Wembanyama.
In the 98-87 victory, Curry, an Olympic rookie, led the Americans with 24 points including eight three-pointers. At age 36, he joined LeBron James, 39, and Kevin Durant, 35, in a once in a lifetime union of the millennial generation’s best National Basketball Association players on the US squad, which now has seventeen Olympic golds in men’s hoops.
“I came into this experience thinking that this would be my one and only time to play in the Olympics and experience this stage”, Curry said earlier this week. After hitting a gravity-defying three point shot with less than a minute remaining in Saturday’s game, he mimicked a napping gesture as if to say he had put French hopes of an upset to rest.
“It is everything I imagined and more”, he said after the medal ceremony in Paris. “Having the time of my life, taking it all in because you never know if this moment would happen again.”
France was led by Wembanyama with 26 points, coming off his own NBA Rookie of the Year season with the San Antonio Spurs. Guerschon Yabusele added another 20 points including an iconic dunk over James in the post which amplified the home crowd, filling Bercy Arena with chants of “MVP”.
Among attendees was French President Emmanuel Macron, football star Thierry Henry, US sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson and late-night host Jimmy Fallon.
Saturday’s game was a rematch of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic final and a showcase of the deep international talent pool on both sides of the Atlantic. Organisers of the Paris Games have oriented both the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments towards a goal of setting the Olympic record for basketball attendance, setting the group stage in a northern football stadium in Lille.
“This is the second time I have got silver, and I am getting tired of it. I need to get a gold”, said Yabusele, who also played for France in Tokyo.
Despite extending their run of Olympic golds, the US men were not without adversity in Paris, narrowly defeating Serbia 95-91 in the semi-final after trailing for the first three quarters on Thursday. The Balkan squad, led by three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić, went on to defeat Germany for the bronze medal earlier Saturday.
James, the four-time NBA champion, was named most valuable player of the tournament by Fiba, the global basketball governing body. Despite the next Olympics taking place in his current home of Los Angeles, he said this was likely his last Games.
“At this latter stage of my career, I don’t know many games I’m going to play, how many more big moments [ I’ll have]”, he said. “I can’t see myself playing in LA. I also didn’t see myself playing in Paris, but four years from now—nah, man.”