“World Champs” or Chumps: Will team USA win the basketball gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics?

Will Team USA win gold in Paris?

Team USA come into the 2024 Paris Olympic campaign as heavy favourites for the tournament boasting a stacked lineup that has been compared with the infamous 1992 Dream Team, but are the really in the same league and will they walk away as victors in France?

A lot has been made of track and field runner Noah Lyles comments on Team USA. Lyles questioned why American NBA basketball players call themselves “World Champions” when they are an American league and not playing against other international teams.

It looks like Team USA and its players took it personally, forming what some are calling the “Avengers”. Players such as LeBron James (first Olympics in 12 years), Stephen Curry (first Olympic campaign), Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis and young gun Anthony Edwards are a couple of the headline names in the final 12 man squad.

With all of those names, many have said this is going to be a cake walk but is it really? There group does look relatively easy, drawing the most unknown and unproven opponents by far in Group C. They will go up against the Nikola Jokic led Serbia, first time Olympians South Sudan and Puerto Rico.

Whilst the names of the country’s aren’t all really that scary compared to teams like Spain, France, Australia, Canada and Germany, they still are going to put up a massive fight against Team USA in the group stage. The biggest question is will the Americans make it out of the group stages or will that be the end of their tournament?

Josh Higgins, expert of the The Basketball Fix has gone against the grain and has selected Team USA and South Sudan to come out of Group C, whilst many including our podcast hosts Ryan Tucker and Jeremy Darke have elected to go with Team USA and Serbia advancing. It’s going to make for some interesting viewing and the world will be watching Team USA and seeing how far they can advance.

Team USA played an exhibition game against the Australian Boomers in Abu Dhabi winning the contest 98-92. Whilst it was a win many people have raised questions about how good this team really is. After being up by as many as 24 points in the second half, the Boomers clawed their way back cutting the lead to just 4 points late in the game.

There were some strong performances for both teams lead by Team USA star Anthony Davis who finished with 17 points and 14 rebounds in 18 minutes of play. Whilst for the Boomers key performances for the new one-two punch of Jock Landale (20 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists) and Josh Giddey (17 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists) proved to be a problem for the USA.

Probably the most worrying statistics for a Team USA supporter was not only the big lead that dissolved but the fact that they had a game high 18 turnovers which is becoming a little bit of a worrying trend coming into the Olympic games.

The biggest unknowns now coming out of the first exhibition match is, are Team USA fragile and really beatable or are the Boomers a better team than first thought?

We will be sitting back and eagerly watching the Olympics to see who comes out on top. Will Team USA win and be crowned the real World Champions and Gold Medalists or are they going to be called chumps?