Basketball made its Games debut at Paris 2024.Clippers and Team USA star Joel Embiid, who has dual French-American citizenship, says he is ready for any jeers from the part of the crowd that should be cheering on his Dream teammate Durant.
A French passport was issued to Embiid last March, but even after he received it in 2022, many there thought Les Bleus would be the team name of either France or his native Cameroon at what was expected to have been his first Olympics. He wound up with team USA instead, a squad looking to win its fifth straight Olympic gold medal.
At the Team USA training camp in Las Vegas, he told The Athletic: “I don’t think it should be anything but if you’re going to do that (more than seven years), I’m excited.
” Playing in New York in the playoffs, I don’t think you can get worse than that,” he said.
New York tabloids anointed the Philadelphia 76ers star “the most hated man in New York” and fans at Madison Square Garden mercilessly booed him during the Knicks’ six-game, playoff-winning first round series over his team.
The 30-year-old big man had said it was a difficult decision on which country to play for, but ended up selecting the U.S. rather than France because he lived in America most of his life and he had his son there.
The Americans lost to France in the group stage at Tokyo but managed a victory in the final for their 17th gold medal.
Once more, France and its trusty duo of Rudy Gobert and Victor Wembanyama loom as an international menace for the U.S., who in turn have built a roster so loaded with talent it’s mind-boggling.
Embiid, who was named the 2023 NBA MVP; James, arguably the greatest basketball player of all time based on numbers and longevity in LeBron’s own right being one of if not THE best ever through age-36 season plus despite his team losing an unlikely second-round Game 7 for Cleveland (last June); Kevin Durant among top three men with two Olympic gold medals as well four World Championships so far this GenX era alongside Stephen Curry.
USA will face reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokic and Serbia in their first match of the group stage on July 28 from Lille, France.
