PARIS — LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant hugged.
They celebrated, laughed and smiled. They made sure they were pictured together holding gold medals.
The reason they hatched this plan to play in an Olympics together — the three biggest American stars of the past two decades, future Hall of Famers, all-time greats — was for that moment.
A gold-medal moment at the 2024 Paris Olympics. To say they did it side by side by side.
It was a modern-day version of Bird-Magic-Jordan’s 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and it will be a while before we see a collection of stars like that on a U.S. Olympic team.
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“We got our moment, and this is what we wanted,” James said.
The U.S. needed all three to defeat France, 98-87, for its fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal.
Playing in his first Olympics, Curry was sensational with 24 points — on eight 3-pointers, including four 3s in the final 2:47 and the final one with 35 seconds left in the fourth quarter put the U.S. up 96-87 and buried France. That performance followed a 36-point effort against Serbia in the semifinals.
James, at 39 years old, was the best all-around player at the Olympics and was named MVP after recording 14 points, 10 assists, six rebounds, two steals and one block against France.
Durant will hoop just about anywhere, anytime, and his 15 points helped ensure a gold and made him the first player to win four Olympic gold medals in men’s basketball.
It’s quite possible that without one of those players on the roster this summer the U.S. does not win gold.
But with all three, they weren’t losing.
“Steph earned this the last few weeks, the last couple weeks every day with his work ethic,” Kerr said. “I tell people all the time when Kevin was with our team, my favorite part of practice with the Warriors was after practice watching those two work and it’s not an accident that they’re able to do what they do down the stretch of games. Just watching these two guys day after day after day is really impressive.
“I’ve talked about LeBron during this experience as well. When you see these guys behind the scenes and how hard they work, how much they love the process of the work itself, it all makes sense that they’re as good as they are.”
France’s young superstar Victor Wembanyama had his best game of the Olympics with 26 points and seven rebounds. He was a handful for the U.S., and the juxtaposition was obvious. Stars were passing in Paris, three burning the final light of amazing careers and the other’s brightness about to light up the NBA for at least the next decade.
But James, Curry and Durant weren’t ready to give Wembanyama the keys just yet.
If you don’t think the Olympics matter to millionaire NBA stars, then you weren’t paying attention to the U.S. in this event, the knockout stage in particular against Serbia in the semifinals and against France in the gold-medal game.
They are elite-level competitors, so they want to win no matter what the competition is. But they also take pride in playing for their country.
“It’s all about representing your country the right way and there’s just a different sense of pride being on that podium, getting your gold medal,” Curry said.
Said James: “I’m just living in the moment. Super humbled that I could still play this game, play it at a high level, played with 11 other great players, with a great coaching staff, and then go out and do it for our country. It was a great moment.”
Said Durant: “My goal every time I put this jersey on was to represent my country, my state, my street, my family name and it help put the game forward. And since I’ve been here, we’ve done that. We built off the Dream Team in ’92, and we carried that torch and that was the main goal.”
It matters. They listen to Doug Collins when he shows them a picture on his cellphone of him getting fouled in the controversial game against the Soviet Union at the 1972 Munich Olympics. They pay attention when Spencer Haywood talks about his experience at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
In 30, 40 years, they will want Olympians to know their stories.
We haven’t seen the last of LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant.
Maybe we’ve seen the last of them at the Olympics (who knows with Durant, maybe he plays at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics).
But the Olympics proved they have still plenty to left to give.
They didn’t win the gold alone. Nine other players contributed. You can go down the list.
But to see James, Curry and Durant on the same team for the first and (likely) final time and win the last two games for gold in Paris the way they did was a beautiful tribute to what they have given to basketball, and what basketball has given to them.
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