The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France are set to get underway soon with Los Angeles Lakers superstars LeBron James an Anthony Davis being part of the USA Men’s Olympic Basketball Team. Opening ceremonies will take place on Friday with LeBron being selected as the USA flag bearer.
This will be James’ fourth trip to the Olympics and Davis’ second with both being teammates on the 2012 Gold Medal team.
Following Team USA’s fourth-place finish at the FIBA World Cup last year, LeBron was one of the first people to talk about playing in Paris in 2024 and he reportedly did a lot of recruiting as well. Davis gave no hesitation when he was asked if he would play and the Lakers duo have been arguably the two best players on a star-studded roster that might be the most talented basketball team ever assembled.
Joining LeBron and Davis on Team USA are Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, Anthony Edwards, Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday, Devin Booker, Bam Adebayo, Tyrese Haliburton and Derrick White, who replaced Kawhi Leonard due to injury.
Team USA had its ups-and-downs during their exhibition showcase highlighted by a dominant victory over Serbia, which features current MVP Nikola Jokic, as well as a solid win over a talented Canadian team. The other three contests were close, however, and while 2020 Bronze Medalist Australia and defending FIBA World Cup Champion Germany should have offered stiff tests, a one-point win over South Sudan was extremely concerning.
That being said, both James and Davis were outstanding throughout the Showcase. Davis has looked like Team USA’s best big man, especially with what he has brought defensively and has been the choice to close out close games. LeBron, meanwhile, has taken over in those closest moments, getting the game-winning layup against South Sudan and also scoring the final 11 points to close out Germany.
Olympic format & Group Stage
There are 12 teams that qualified for the Olympics and they will be broken up into three groups of four. Each team will play three games against the other teams in their group with two points being awarded for a win and one point for a loss.
Following the conclusion of those games, the two top teams from each group will automatically qualify for the knockout round. Additionally, the two best third-place teams will also move to the knockout round with the remaining four teams all being eliminated.
A random drawing will determine the quarterfinal matchups with the caveats of the two top teams being guaranteed to be on opposite sides of the bracket as well as teams from the same group not being drawn against each other in the quarterfinals. At that point, it is a standard single-elimination tournament in which the winners move forward and the losers are eliminated.
Team USA is in Group C with Serbia, South Sudan and Puerto Rico. Group A has Australia, Canada, Spain and Greece while Group B includes France, Germany, Brazil and Japan.
Team USA Schedule
Team USA will kick off group play on July 28 against Nikola Jokic and Serbia at 8:15 a.m. PT. Their second group stage game comes against South Sudan on July 31 at 12:00 p.m. PT and the final contest coming against Puerto Rico on Aug. 3 at 8:15 a.m. PT.
The quarterfinal games will take place on Aug. 6, the semi-finals on Aug. 8 and the Gold and Bronze Medal games will happen on Aug. 10.
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