A new Premier League season is nearly here, which means only one thing: it’s time for footballers to stand moodily, staring straight ahead, possibly somewhere with artistic lighting and some extremely jerky camerawork, modelling their team’s new kit for the season.

A relatively new phenomenon has been clubs revealing the new kits to the players and filming their reactions, which virtually all inspire a forced grin and them saying slight variants of, “Yeah, that’s nice, that is.”

Of course, if they hated the shirts, they couldn’t say so… but we can. So here are this season’s new Premier League home kits: ranked.

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Sweet fancy Moses. You do sometimes wonder how some things happen, and whether anyone actually genuinely thinks they’re a good idea. Person A suggests an idea they sort of half-believe in, Person B doesn’t really understand it but just says yes to avoid looking stupid, so Person A is emboldened, goes to Person C and says, “Well, Person B thinks it’s a winner”, and then it all snowballs from there.

That’s one of the only explanations I can come up with for this shirt, which really does look like someone has taken a baseball bat to a lava lamp, the result of which splooged all over a perfectly nice blue shirt.

It’s the sort of jersey that would exist if there were football teams in the sci-fi action film Tron. I don’t care for it.

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Let’s address the elephant in the room here: this is not a Southampton kit. Sure, it’s got the Southampton logo, and Southampton players will wear it this season in Southampton games, but it’s not a Southampton kit. It’s a Brentford kit from around 2014, or perhaps at a push a Sunderland kit from a few years after that.

But it’s not a Southampton kit. Absolutely no way. And don’t let them fool you into thinking it is. Even if you don’t care about that… it’s just a bit dull, isn’t it?

Last season’s shirt was a glorious slice of retro Hummel, so it’s a double shame that when many more people will be watching them this time, they’ll be wearing whatever nonsense this is.

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If you Google ‘Sudu’, the top results are a duel between Wolves’ new kit providers and a Malaysian restaurant in London. Would it be too sniffy to suggest that the chefs at the Queen’s Park-based eatery could have done a better job of designing a football shirt than their namesakes?

The theory is clear: Wolves’ owner Fosun Sports Group has a stake in the newly-formed Sudu, and will thus get a bigger cut of sales, which in turn makes the shirt cheaper for fans (£58 for the replica), but that isn’t much use when ticket prices have just gone up massively.

But we do also go back to the basic fact that this shirt looks like it has been designed by someone who has never designed a football shirt before. Which, to all intents and purposes, is exactly what it is.

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It’s always a little disconcerting when a club returns to the Premier League after a long while away wearing a shirt that doesn’t actually look like the sort of shirt that club should be wearing.

With Ipswich, you want some familiarity, which means lots of white on the sleeves, if not completely white sleeves. Not this time: blue with white pinstripes and a darker blue collar. Those of us of a certain age and with a nostalgic bent would also prefer Fisons to still be their sponsor, although given they appear to have gone out of business, admittedly that is a bit of a tough ask.

It’s fine, but if you took the badge off, would you get in five guesses whose shirt this was? Possibly not.

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I’m all for consistency in design, having a common theme running through your shirts…but isn’t this basically the same shirt West Ham had last season? And for 2020-21? And 2015-16? And 2011-12?

You get the point. It feels like West Ham have a system where they go for something slightly different for a year or two, then just fall back on this ‘classic’ design, giving a nod to their shirts from the 1960s and ’70s.

Which is not to say this isn’t a nice shirt. Shorn of context, it’s lovely. A great example of how to do clean and simple. But it is a bit rum to ask people to ditch that shirt they paid £75 for a year ago — old news, no longer relevant, get with the programme, grandma — and pay £75 for a new one, when the only change you’ve made is a slightly different collar.

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Area codes are big news in football right now. Lamine Yamal was big on the 304 postal code of the town he grew up in during Euro 2024, while City appear to have based their new kit around the Manchester dialling code — 0161, displayed on the collar and cuffs.

It’s the only real detail on an otherwise entirely plain sky-blue shirt, the problem being that the pattern they’ve used makes it extremely difficult to make out the numbers.

From a distance of more than about three yards away, it looks more like a loose attempt at camouflage, but even closer up the 0 looks like a ’u’ and the 6 looks like nothing in particular. So, nice idea, but it does seem a bit pointless when you can’t actually see it.

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Bournemouth

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Bournemouth were the last of the 20 Premier League teams to release their new kit, spending the interim messing around with some odd shirt designed by their celebrity part-owner Michael B Jordan that they’d only wear in pre-season.

So the question is: was it worth the wait? To which the answer is: sort of! It’s a perfectly decent design, the stripes are strong and the red and black colour combination is always going to be pleasingly bold.

But you are always slightly suspicious when teams who don’t usually have gold on their shirts suddenly throw a bit of gold on there. Why? It all feels a bit ”the football club doth protest too much” — them trying to project the image of glamour and success, when just winning games would do that rather more effectively.

This is available to buy without the awful gambling logo on the front.

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”Extra stripes, extra style”, is how Brighton launched their new kit in July, which as a marketing strategy does feel a bit like those razor companies who just add an extra blade and call it the next great leap in shaving technology.

More stripes is good, right? Because it’s more. And more is better than less. More is good. More! It’s actually a pleasant-enough shirt, with those extra stripes placed down the middle of the existing stripes in some sort of stripe-ception attempt.

Elsewhere, it’s fairly straightforward, with a big chunky collar and big chunky cuffs, next to the slightly unusual sleeve sponsor of the Kissimmee, Florida tourist board.

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Adidas seem to have gone for a ‘less is more’ approach across the board with its kits this season, basic designs that have a nod to the company’s template from the mid-2000s.

Which is fine, I guess, but it has led to a bunch of shirts that sort of look the same: Leicester, Fulham, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest are all basically the same design with the colours changed (though there is some different detail on the latter two), which feels like a bit of a swizz.

Maybe it’s unrealistic to expect wildly different designs for each team, but it would be nice to have just a little bit of variation.

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The sales spiel for this otherwise fairly plain shirt talks of a ”subtle gradient design on the front and back”, and just in case you weren’t 100 per cent sure what that means, they’re talking about the bits where it makes whoever is wearing the shirt look like they are sweating from the navel up. Otherwise, it’s another cookie-cutter Adidas top but with that ”subtle gradient design”.

We also need to dwell on the other Adidas common design, which is the weird band things on the shorts. They basically make it look like all the players are wearing braces and they’ve let them fall off their shoulders, calling to mind the sexy and moody character in a Victorian drama who is caught in an unguarded moment with his blouson undone and a few inches of chest on display, setting hearts a-flutter.

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Back to basics for Fulham this season, after their renegade ”red stripes on one shoulder, white stripes on the other” effort last season. And while it’s very simple, it’s also quite nice, with the caveat that the red flashes up from the hips do make it look a bit like a Bolton shirt from the early 2000s.

It is a little spoiled by the sleeve sponsor, a massive logo of something called WebBeds, which, as you well know, is a B2B accommodation distribution company.

Last season, their logo was rather more unobtrusive, but this time they clearly decided not enough people could see it from the planes flying over Craven Cottage on their way to Heathrow airport a few miles down the road, so now it’s about three times the size of the club badge.

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Another from the Adidas template box, but at least this shirt does have an element of team-specific detail to it.

Forest are obviously very big on their two stars, which you can see above the club badge there, commemorating the European Cups they won in 1979 and 1980. The background design to this shirt also reflects this, and it works quite well: subtle enough not to be overpowering, obvious enough that the people who need to notice, will notice.

The whole thing is spoiled slightly by the sponsor’s logo, which at the same time as being for a betting company that is not licensed in the UK, is just a really ugly logo.

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Do you have a TV show that you really like, but at the same time you completely agree with all the criticisms of it? The West Wing, for example: it’s smug, the dialogue is nothing like how anyone has ever talked in real life, it presents itself as progressive but is fantastically patronising to women, and there’s no way Toby would have ever leaked those details about the space shuttle. And yet, I love it and occasionally watch episodes when I want something comforting.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that this Palace kit, which looks like the art project of a student who has been encouraged far beyond their talent and needs someone to tell them ‘no’ once in a while, is great.

I recognise that, objectively, it’s a mess. But if I was a Palace fan, I’d have been there outside the club shop at 9am the day it went on sale. I love it. Sue me.

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There’s something… I dunno …comforting about this Everton kit. I’m instinctively annoyed they have moved away from having their shirts designed by Hummel, which means no team will sport those glorious chevrons in the Premier League this season.

Despite moving to Castore, a brand that seems more at home making polo shirts for rugby fans, this is really quite good. I can’t really explain exactly why, other than the fact it looks like an interpretation of the kit they wore when winning the FA Cup in 1994-95.

That doesn’t appear to be deliberate, going by the blurb released with it, but as a shirt to wear during their last season at Goodison Park (if all goes to plan), this is very good indeed.

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Arsenal have played around with the colours of the three stripes on the shoulder of their shirts ever since returning to Adidas in 2019. They’ve had white on red, blue on red, gold on white and now, in the opinion of your noble kit ranker, the best combination anywhere this season with blue on white.

You need strong contrast, as a rule, and this is most certainly that, a shirt that is a tribute to one they wore in the early 1990s. It’s a little different while still being identifiably an Arsenal kit, and also features just the cannon logo (as opposed to the cannon as one element of a shield) for the first time since 1990.

Very strong, although the Emirates logo does seem weirdly massive this year.

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Listen, fair play. Adidas’s emotional return to Newcastle was always going to be catnip to those of us who fondly remember the club’s freewheelin’ 1990s and early 2000s glory days, and it doesn’t disappoint.

Here’s proof that you don’t need to do much with stripes, just ensure they’re not too thick and not too thin, and make some sort of provision on the back so the players’ names and numbers are clear enough, and you’re away.

The black sleeves mean that, of the Adidas kits of yore, this probably most resembles the 2002 shirt, sported by your Alan Shearers, Craig Bellamys and Laurent Roberts.

It’s so nice you can even briefly forget that the main sponsor Sela, with its lovely clean typeface and logo, is an arm of the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

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It’s our now annual firm congratulatory handshake to Brentford for continuing their policy of only releasing one new kit per season, a retro move presumably designed to make them stand out among the crowd of teams so perpetually happy to rinse their fans.

They will thus be sporting the same home kit as last season in 2024-25, and while that is a bit of a pity because that one is a bit rubbish, we’ll let them off on this occasion.

Well done, Brentford.

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Everyone Villa-related seems pretty happy about life these days. Even selling Moussa Diaby, who was so electrifying in the first half of last season, seems to have been greeted as the shrewd business of a sensible football club.

Everyone was in an even better mood when this kit was released, and rightly so. It’s a delightful thing, Adidas managing to pull off the feat of designing a kit for a team they never have worked with before, while at the same time not making it look weird and out of place.

The shade of blue on the sleeves is lighter than it has been in some previous seasons, which is a canny move because it makes the maroon stripes pop all the more. The pattern on the collar is also a nod, unless I’m much mistaken, to the design worn when Villa won the European Cup in 1982, which is a lovely little touch.

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You have to assume this wasn’t at the forefront of Nike’s mind when it designed this shirt, but the solid block dark blue sleeves are an interesting choice for Tottenham, given that for the last competitive game they sported this design, half the team had spent more time in the toilet than on the pitch. That was in 2006, and the match in question was the infamous ‘lasagne’ game against West Ham, when many of their squad had been struck down with food poisoning.

Calamitous gastric reminders aside, this is a really great looking shirt, clean and bold, with the sponsor’s logo in bright red actually adding something to it rather than looking awful (although it could probably do with being a font size or two smaller), while the shorts are dark blue rather than white, which is as it should be.

Yes, yes and yes. Just be careful that everything you eat is cooked through properly.

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The trouble with teams wearing their new kits for the last game of the previous season is you forget that’s actually their new kit. Genuinely went searching for a few minutes for Liverpool’s new shirt, because I just assume this wasn’t it, having already seen it in action. Which is more a comment on my declining faculties than the kit itself, which is truly excellent.

It might be slightly tricky to do but while they’re sorting out the financial rules or tweaking VAR to pretend it makes the slightest bit of difference to that dreary blight on the game, the FA or the Premier League should really put a law in place that stipulates Liverpool should always have a splash of gold/yellow on their kits.

There’s just enough here, and in addition the collar is excellent and the broken-up pinstripes thing works. Gold stars to everyone involved.

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(Photos: Getty Images/Design: Dan Goldfarb)

The Chargers face a key decision heading into the second week of the preseason: Will Easton Stick continue to lead the offense against their L.A. neighbors, the Rams, on Saturday, or will newcomer Luis Perez take over?

As of Monday, Stick remains the Chargers’ starter, working with the first-team offense, while Perez — signed last week — already was taking reps with the second team. Both Stick and Perez received a nearly equal number of reps under center.

Perez is now securely slotted as the No. 2 quarterback behind Stick, especially after Max Duggan saw limited action in practice and Casey Bauman was released.

On the practice field, Stick appeared to be at a similar level as last week, making several solid passes.

Meanwhile, Perez showed progress, gradually becoming more comfortable with the offense and playbook while delivering some solid throws. Harbaugh coached Perez closely throughout practice.

“For being here just four days, he acclimated himself well,” Harbaugh said. “We’re excited about him and coaching him up. … Now we want more.”

Harbaugh’s assessment of Perez is that he’s attacking the challenge and putting in the work to compete, arriving early at the facilities and staying late.

“I can guarantee the guy has an opportunity … so competitors are welcome,” Harbaugh said.

When evaluating his two quarterbacks, Harbaugh avoided giving a practice grade “for public consumption,” stating that both quarterbacks looked good. In his view, the team is a meritocracy, and the best player will start Saturday.

The question remains: Who will it be?

Harbaugh is trying to avoid the quarterback situation from becoming a pseudo-quarterback controversy. Considering Stick’s performance against the Seahawks and no update on Justin Herbert, however, deciding who will be under center is a crucial competition.

Injury updates

After Herbert suffered a plantar fascia injury on Aug. 1, the training staff gave the quarterback a two-week timetable for a “gradual return to play,” set for Thursday. However, Harbaugh has not provided an update on a Herbert timeline.

On a positive note for the quarterbacks, wide receivers Ladd McConkey and Joshua Palmer fully participated in practice, including full-team periods. Neither played against the Seahawks.

Defensively, linebacker Junior Colson returned to individual drills after missing the start of camp because of an appendix surgery. Harbaugh noted that Colson is progressing, but it’s unclear if he’ll be ready to play Saturday.

Edge rusher Joey Bosa remained absent from practice after leaving the Chargers-Rams joint practice on Aug. 4. The team has not provided any updates on Bosa’s condition or how long he will be out.

Additionally, linebacker Chris Rumph is sidelined with a foot injury and “will miss some time.”

Harbaugh unmoved

The Chargers were scheduled to hold their second joint practice with the Rams on Wednesday in El Segundo, but the Rams decided to take a shorter commute and hold another practice with the Dallas Cowboys in Oxnard instead.

Harbaugh was unfazed by the change, stating, “It wasn’t good for them logistically. Not good for them, not good for us.”

Etc.

The Chargers added to their receiver room by signing Isaiah Wooden. He played the last two seasons at Southern Utah (2022-23) after beginning his college career at Kent State (2020-21). He will wear No. 83.

PARIS — Jayson Tatum stood in the arena loading dock Saturday night, an Olympic gold medal draped around his neck and untold bottles of champagne waiting for him, answering questions about his personal disappointment and his mom coming to his defense on social media.

This should have been, and in many ways still was, the Summer of Tatum. His first NBA championship with the Boston Celtics. A $314-million contract extension. The birth of his second child. And yes, a second gold medal in as many Olympics, this time as a member of arguably the greatest team ever assembled.

But Tatum’s role on the fringe of Team USA’s rotation was not one he’s used to, or was prepared for, and the two games he didn’t play in during the Americans’ run to gold made for huge news and hot debate back home.

“I keep trying to say, I’m trying not to make it about me, all the storylines over the last few days — we won,” Tatum said after the Americans’ 98-87 triumph over France, in which Tatum did play and contributed two points and three rebounds in 11 minutes. “We won a gold medal, and that was most important.”

Because they won, the debate is moot. History will judge U.S. coach Steve Kerr favorably for managing this team as he did, for riding Devin Booker as a starter over Tatum, for using Derrick White as a point-of-attack defender off the bench until the Americans played France, when Tatum’s length was more valuable to the team than what White brought as a defense-first guard.

Had the Americans lost at any point this summer, and especially in the medal rounds, with Tatum on the bench, then yes, Kerr and Team USA’s executives would have been crushed with criticism for not finding a bigger role for someone who has been a first-team All-NBA selection three years in a row.

But they didn’t lose, so the arguments and the takes no longer matter. What is important, vitally important, for U.S. men’s basketball now, though, is how Tatum feels. Because the program still needs him and will need him.

“It was a tough personal experience on the court, but I’m not going to be making any decision off emotions,” Tatum said. “If you asked me right now if I was going to play in 2028, it is four years from now, and I would have to take time and think about that. So I’m not going to make any decision based off how this experience was or how I felt individually.”

The U.S. has now won five consecutive men’s basketball gold medals. They all count, but this one felt bigger in terms of importance because of the team the Americans sent to Paris. The names and the resumes belonging to LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and Joel Embiid, to say nothing of the other eight stars, including Tatum, drew constant comparisons to the Dream Team of 1992. If this team couldn’t win, what would that say about the state of USA Basketball moving forward?

Thanks to the heroics of the Americans’ three elder statesmen, no one had to answer that question. But the team the U.S. fields four summers from now, when the Games are on American soil in Los Angeles, will be influenced greatly by the experience of this summer.

Whether it was the choice made by USA executives to go all in on All-Stars, instead of sprinkling in more role players, or how the players who could return to the team in 2028 feel about the journey they just completed, the next chapter of American basketball on the international stage will be written based in large part on the chapter that finished so gloriously late Saturday night in the City of Light.

“You can’t keep everyone happy,” USA managing director Grant Hill — who won a gold medal as a player in 1996 — said in a recent interview with The Athletic. “But I think you win a gold medal and everyone feels like they contributed. I think people will come out of this with a positive outlook on the entire experience.

“And, you know, we’ll have to revamp and figure things out in four years.”

As Hill said in that interview, which was first published Friday, the team was constructed with 11 All-Stars (12, if you count Kawhi Leonard before he was replaced by Derrick White) in part because of the versatility of the top teams in the world, but also in case James, Curry or Durant couldn’t play at the highest level.

James will be 43 in 2028. He said Saturday he did not expect to play for Team USA at the Los Angeles Games. Curry will be 40, and while he left himself room to change his mind — “never say never” is what he said — he suggested Paris would be his first and only Olympics. Durant will be 39 and has battled injuries the last few years, but he could easily decide he wants to be the men’s version of Diana Taurasi or Sue Bird and go for a fifth Olympic gold.

Even if Durant were healthy enough to sign up for another Olympic tour, he would not likely be the alpha, dominant player he’s been in his first four Games. Jrue Holiday will be 38 in 2028; he is probably finished after two gold medals. Anthony Davis will be 35 in 2028 and White, who will be 34, could be back, but it would depend in part on Davis’ interest and also what kind of team the Americans want to build.

The U.S. would love to get another Olympics out of Embiid, whom Hill successfully recruited away from France through occasional, low-pressure, open-ended discussions while the French demanded Embiid make good on the passport he asked for by playing for Les Bleus.

But when asked what he thought of his first Olympics, and if he might be interested in another go when he’ll be 34 in 2028, Embiid said, “It’s been a grind.

“That’s one thing I’ll say being gone for a few weeks away from family, away from home,” Embiid said. “But then again, I think being with Team USA, the group of guys that we have, the people around has made it easy to just enjoy it. And then Paris is a great city too, and then the next one is in LA. We’ll see. I don’t know, maybe it might not be with Team USA, maybe it might be with Cameroon, so we’ll see.”

Joel Embiid spent most of these two weeks being chided by French fans for choosing to play for the U.S. “It’s been a grind,” he said Saturday. (Harry Langer / DeFodi Images via Getty Images)

Embiid, born in Cameroon, could not play for his native country without releases from both FIBA and USA Basketball, since he played for the Americans this summer.

Bam Adebayo is a two-time Olympic gold medalist. He will be 31 in 2028, but his coach for the Miami Heat, Erik Spoelstra, could well be the next coach for Team USA (Kerr has said he will step down from his role after the Paris Games). Spoelstra served as an assistant to Kerr on this year’s team.

“A lot of people don’t get these opportunities, one, to be able to compete for your country, and two, to be able to win a gold medal,” Adebayo said. “So just having both of those in mind, you can’t pass on an opportunity like this.”

Booker, like Adebayo and Tatum, is a veteran of the last two Olympics and will be 31 for the Los Angeles Games. Booker took on a “lesser” role with Team USA, insofar as he elected to defend, rebound and do the dirty work until open shots came to him (he is, of course, a prolific scorer for the Suns). By thriving in what was asked of him, Booker started every game at the Paris Olympics.

“Devin Booker is an incredible basketball player,” Kerr said. “He was our unsung MVP — I just wanted to say that.”

If anyone has positive feelings about a return for the next Olympics, it would be Booker.

Roster building for most countries is a more singular, holistic approach of building a national team that plays in all the high-profile tournaments, including Olympics and FIBA World Cups — which now are held the year before the Olympics.

The problem for Hill and USA Basketball is most American NBA superstars have decided they do not want to play consecutive summers. So, for the time being, Hill will likely have to piece together rosters of younger rising stars for the 2027 World Cup in Qatar, and then decide who among those players he can elevate to the Olympic team with more established stars.

GO DEEPER

Even for Stephen Curry, that Olympic gold-medal game performance was ridiculous

Anthony Edwards was Team USA’s youngest player at 22 this summer. He came off Kerr’s bench and enjoyed some huge scoring games at the Olympics, including his 26 points against Puerto Rico. He has said he is interested in more Olympic experiences for the U.S., but no more World Cups.

“Hell nah,” Edwards said, when asked if he would consider a second appearance at a World Cup.

Tyrese Haliburton is only 24, and he and Edwards were the lone players asked to play at the Olympics from the 2023 World Cup team that finished fourth in the Philippines. But unlike Edwards, Haliburton played the fewest minutes of anyone this summer, with “DNP–coach’s decision” next to his name in four games.

When you ain’t do nun on the group project and still get an A🏅 pic.twitter.com/xpshYZhMyA

— Tyrese Haliburton (@TyHaliburton22) August 10, 2024

Haliburton came into the Olympic run aware that his role would be reduced from what it was in 2023, when he set a U.S. record for assists at a World Cup, but Haliburton’s playing time nose-dived once White joined the team.

Paolo Banchero, another member of USA’s last World Cup team, was under serious consideration for the Paris Olympics and is a player Hill wants to feature in Olympiads to come.

Jaylen Brown, a superstar on the Boston Celtics whose only experience on the national team was in 2019 at the World Cup in China, felt snubbed by not making the 2024 Olympic team either as an original member or as a replacement for Leonard. He was openly critical of being left off the roster on social media. Hill told All the Smoke’s “Open Run” with Rachel Nichols last week that Brown “will be a candidate in ’28 if he wants in.”

“Oh yeah,” Hill said. “One thing I’ve learned. You can’t take anything personal in this role. And so, I haven’t personalized anything. My goal, my objective is to win. As soon as … that happens, we pivot and start looking ahead to the future.”

And of course, there are any number of current NBA stars, or borderline stars, or future stars who could be a great fit for Team USA in 2028. Perhaps even a player who is not yet in the NBA, like Cooper Flagg, who is headed for his first and likely only season at Duke before turning pro.

What is certain is the pressure to win at home will be great, and will come with enormous challenges from the world’s other top teams — including France.

The French have narrowly lost the last two gold-medal games to the United States. Victor Wembanyama is only 20, and the San Antonio Spurs superstar was dominant against the Americans Saturday with 26 points and as a presence on defense. Four Frenchmen were drafted in the first round of the NBA Draft last June.

Zaccharie Risacher went No. 1 to the Atlanta Hawks, and the Washington Wizards selected 7-footer Alex Sarr with the second pick. The Charlotte Hornets drafted forward Tidjane Salaün at No. 6, and Pacôme Dadiet was selected 25th by the New York Knicks. None of the four were on the French national team this summer, but it’s likely all could join Wembanyama and the Washington Wizards’ Bilal Coulibaly as young, upcoming NBA players (stars?) at the next World Cup and Olympics.

Les Bleus are just one example, although maybe the best one, of how hard it’s going to be for the Americans to keep winning gold medals every four years, regardless of who is on the roster.

“I’m learning, and I’m worried for the opponents in a couple years,” Wembanyama said Saturday, a silver medal dangling from his neck, not far from where Tatum was standing.

Asked if he meant he was “worried” for opponents in the NBA, or on the international stage, Wemby said: “Everywhere.”

Including Los Angeles, in four years.

GO DEEPER

‘Everything I imagined, and more’: Team USA’s gold medal game seals NBA stars’ legacies

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(Top photo of Bam Adebayo, Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid and LeBron James celebrating Saturday’s win: Harry Langer / DeFodi Images via Getty Images)