PARIS — We need to get used to this.
As a nation that comes into every Olympics thinking it’s more of a coronation than competition, we need to feel the tension, the stakes and the possession-by-possession intensity that is only possible when you respect what it takes to win and have a healthy fear that a loss could be around the corner.
We need to understand that what we saw at Bercy Arena on Thursday in an epic semifinal against Serbia is the new normal. We need to admit that, little by little, the world is coming for Team USA.
They’re almost there.
Just not yet.
Somehow, at the very moment it looked like this team of at least six future Hall of Famers was ready to be buried, they resurrected. Somehow, when one of the most disheartening defeats in the history of American basketball was looming over their heads, they held off the guillotine.
After storming back for a 95-91 victory over Serbia that almost seemed out of reach, Team USA will play France for the gold medal on Saturday. Better not take anything for granted. Not now, and probably not for the rest of our lives.
“Serbia was brilliant today, and I am really humbled to have been a part of this game,” Team USA coach Steve Kerr said. “It’s one of the greatest basketball games I’ve ever been a part of.”
It was great because Serbia was great. It was great because Team USA’s forever superstars were great exactly when they needed to be. But it was also great because it wasn’t really a fluke: This is what the Olympic tournament is going to be now. The day they’ve been warning us about for more than 20 years is finally here.
America’s advantage in international basketball is now skinnier than Kevin Durant and less durable than Joel Embiid. Team USA will always have the deepest pool of talent, the biggest diversity of skills, the heartiest cornucopia of athletic skills from which to construct a roster every four years.
But the gap at the top, playing out in a condensed game under FIBA rules? It’s almost gone. And we all better get comfortable with that idea.
“The other countries, they all have great players now,” Kerr said. “But we have the most great players and we feel confident that over 40 minutes, that will play itself out. But yeah, it was dicey for most of that.”
Really dicey.
For more than three quarters, Serbia was the better team. Let’s make no mistake about that. And when you think about what it took to stave off humiliation this time, you have to wonder how long it can be sustained.
In the end, it was up to the aging generation of America’s all-time greats, all on the wrong side of 30: Durant, Steph Curry, Embiid and most of all LeBron James. Everyone else in this game was more or less irrelevant when it was necessary to make Nikola Jokic work a little harder, when they had to rush a shot from Bogdan Bogdanovic, when the margins were so small that an instinct beyond basketball had to kick in.
Through sheer will and focus, they saved USA Basketball from four years of questions and recriminations. They probably are going to win another gold medal. They won’t be around forever.
“I mean, it’s up there,” James said. “I’m 39 years old going into my 22nd season. I don’t know how many opportunities and moments I’m going to get like this to be able to compete for something, compete for something big and playing big games. Tonight was a big game.”
It was only that big because the competition was that worthy. Of course there was always a chance the U.S. could come back from a deficit that got as big as 17 points in the first half and was 13 entering the fourth quarter. But it took Kerr putting the game in the hands of just a few guys. Every decision mattered, and every possession was on the knife’s edge.
Now the trends are clear. This isn’t 2004, when the U.S. sent a dysfunctional team that was bad the entire tournament and had to settle for bronze. This isn’t 2008, 2012 or 2016 when Spain was the only country in the world that could play on America’s level in the Olympics, and even then the U.S. never felt real danger of actually losing.
In 2021, though, the U.S. trailed Australia at halftime in the semifinals and needed Durant to be brilliant in the gold-medal game against France – a team it lost to in the preliminary round.
That was a paradigm shift.
Now, three of the five best players in the NBA play for Serbia (Jokic), Greece (Giannis Antetokounmpo) and Slovenia (Luka Doncic). The U.S. will face France again Saturday and Victor Wembanyama is going to join that group soon. Four years from now, the French team will also have this year’s No. 1 overall pick Zaccharie Risacher, the No. 2 pick Alex Sarr and a likely top-five pick next year in point guard Nolan Traore. They’re coming. So is Canada, and potentially Germany. Serbia’s not going anywhere. Australia is only a piece or two away.
Right now, the Americans are relying heavily – too heavily, really – on an old lineup because those are the only players Kerr can trust to get the job done.
The dirty little secret about USA Basketball is that it has not been very successful at integrating young stars into its program and preparing them for this level of international competition. Anthony Edwards hurt more than he helped against Serbia. Jayson Tatum just won an NBA championship but didn’t take off his warmups against Serbia – a second DNP of this tournament.
A year ago, when the US sent a team to the FIBA World Cup led by young guys like Edwards, Jaren Jackson, Tyrese Haliburton and Paolo Banchero, it was a disaster. They lost three of their eight games.
They’ll improve, of course. More young stars will come into the mix. But Team USA has been relying on Durant and James to carry them out of the fire for a long time. Pretty soon, they’ll have to pass the torch to a generation that didn’t have to face so much responsibility or pressure, and they’ll do it against the backdrop of a world that is clearly closing the gap.
Even in a road game, the U.S. should beat France and take home its fifth straight gold medal. But after watching Serbia come oh-so-close to ending our country’s reign, that confidence is a luxury we won’t have much longer.
Follow columnist Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken
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