The 2024 Summer Olympics are now underway, and while Team USA basketball is favored to win the gold medal, that doesn’t mean it will be easy.
The rest of the world has caught up to the United States in basketball over the years. Last year, it didn’t even medal at the FIBA World Cup, and while it has won the gold at the last four Summer Olympics, the field it had to defeat was very competitive.
Los Angeles Lakers superstar big man Anthony Davis is playing a key role off the bench for Team USA. While some have felt he should be starting over Joel Embiid, he seems content with his reserve role, where he has mainly been used as a defensive spark plug and energy player.
Davis says it reminds him of the way he played while at the University of Kentucky.
Via USA Basketball:
“It kind of takes me back to my college days where I was just dominating,” Davis said. “I could block shots, rebound, just be a presence. I think just having us commanding the paint and on the defensive end is going to help us out.”
When he was the No. 1 pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, Davis was known more as a defensive player and a powerhouse rebounder than a dominant scorer. Many at the time compared him to Tim Duncan, who was never an overpowering scorer but rather did his damage in a roundabout way.
It may sound like sacrilege given how high Duncan ranks on many people’s lists of the greatest players ever, but Davis has evolved into arguably a greater scorer than Duncan ever was. Of course, it’s a stretch to say Davis is as great an overall player or a greater player than the San Antonio Spurs legend, but he has certainly grown and evolved since his college days.
The fact that he has been willing to sacrifice his scoring to help his country go after the gold says volumes about how selfless he is.