In 2021, Team USA men’s basketball finally took the court in Tokyo for the Summer Olympics, which had been delayed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker didn’t shoot particularly well, he started in five of the six games played and earned a gold medal.
This year, he was again in uniform for Team USA, this time in Paris for the 2024 Summer Games. He played somewhat better, and he scored 15 points in the 98-87 win over France in the gold medal game.
This summer’s iteration of Team USA had two big members it didn’t have last time: LeBron James and Stephen Curry. Booker admitted that the two made his Olympic experience different this time around.
“This experience was totally different from the first one. Not taking anything away from that, but the atmosphere, obviously Stephen, LeBron joining us, this experience is going up there with any other experience in my lifetime,” USA guard Devin Booker said.
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) August 10, 2024
James was named the MVP for men’s basketball at the Olympics, as he regularly filled up the stat sheet in multiple categories and played unselfishly. In the six games played, he averaged 14.2 points and led the United States with 8.5 assists and 6.8 rebounds a game and a 66% field-goal shooting accuracy.
His experience playing on two other iterations of Team USA that won the gold in 2008 and 2012 no doubt helped with this group, which featured several players who were appearing in their first Olympic Games, including Curry, Joel Embiid, Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton and Derrick White.