Team USA is undoubtedly the biggest favorite to take home the gold from the 2024 Paris Olympics.
As the No. 1-ranked men’s basketball squad, Joel Embiid and the collection of NBA stars on the United States team are expected to blow out the competition. However, Embiid also fairly believes that Team USA’s rivals also have great talent to put up a fight against the Americans.
In a recent interview, which took place surely before Saturday’s showdown in London against South Sudan, Embiid seemingly raised some concern about the makeup of Team USA, even saying that Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James isn’t what he used to be.
Via David Marchese of the New York Times (h/t Mike Chiari of Bleacher Report):
“You look at the talent that the U.S. has, but there’s equal talent on other teams,” he said. “And the talent that’s on the U.S. team, you also got to understand most of those guys are older. The LeBron now is not the LeBron that was a couple of years ago. So it’s a big difference.
Embiid is right about the NBA’s four-time Mos Valuable Player being a diminished version of himself some years ago, but even at 39 years old, James can still take over and get the job done — something that he explicitly showed during Team USA’s close 101-100 win over South Sudan where he scored the game-winning basket.
James led the Americans with 25 points on 10/14 shooting from the field with six rebounds and seven assists.
Embiid was not too shabby himself, as he had 14 points and seven rebounds while making five of six attempts from the floor.
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