2024 United States men's Olympic basketball team

The men's national basketball team of the United States competed at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, and won the gold medal. They qualified for the Olympics as one of the top two FIBA Basketball World Cup finishers from the Americas in (/wiki/2023FIBABasketballWorldCup). It was the fifth consecutive Olympic gold medal for the Americans, who defeated France in the gold-medal game for the second straight Olympics.

Timeline

• January 23, 2024 41 roster finalists announced • April 17 Initial 12-man roster named • July 5 Start of training camp • July 10–22 Exhibition games • July 28 – August 11 2024 Summer Olympics

Roster

After the 2023 U.S. World Cup team finished in fourth place, the first time since (/wiki/1970FIBAWorldChampionship) that Team USA failed to medal in consecutive World Cups, USA Basketball executive director Grant Hill and head coach Steve Kerr tried to persuade more experienced players to join the Olympic team. The NBA career scoring leader, LeBron James, reportedly committed the day after the United States lost in the World Cup bronze medal game, and he recruited other players to join the team. Kevin Durant, who was already the career leading scorer in U.S. men's Olympic history, said that he "kind of committed" to the Olympic team during the 2022–23 NBA season, when he was with the Brooklyn Nets, and Hill and Kerr were in Brooklyn to convince him to play in the World Cup. According to Durant, after James "started texting everybody ... I kind of knew we were all going to get together and that this was a special time". Stephen Curry, the NBA's all-time 3-point scoring leader, said he "pretty much softly committed" in 2022, when he and Kerr, his head coach with the Golden State Warriors, were returning from Boston after winning the NBA Finals over the Boston Celtics. Curry was joking with Kerr that the Olympics was "the only thing I hadn't done". In 2023, James texted Curry about playing. For four consecutive seasons from 2015 to 2018, while James was with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he and Curry faced each other in the NBA Finals, with the Warriors claiming three titles. Durant, who was Curry's teammate for two of those championships, said that joining the Olympic team "was a no-brainer, especially when [James and Curry] committed."

2024 United States men's Olympic basketball team