This post has sent a group chat of my friends into a borderline war and I can’t understand for the life of me how that’s the case. Anyone who believes the 2024 USA Olympic basketball team could compete with 2008 is, is my humble opinion, borderline developmentally disabled. Even in a seven-game series, I’m not sure the 2024 team could find two wins.
Tell me at which positions the 2024 team is better than 2008. Obviously, no reasonable person could argue LeBron James is better now than he was in 2008, so that’s off the table. Having Olympic Melo coming in behind him cancels out Kevin Durant, as well. Similarly, there is surely not a soul on this planet who would make a case for Devin Booker and Anthony Edwards even belonging in a conversation with Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. There’s two off the table.
I briefly considered giving 2024 the nod at point guard because Steph Curry is still Steph Curry, but then I went back and looked at Chris Paul’s numbers in 2008 and nope, ’24 loses that battle, too. However, in my benevolence and objectivity, I am willing to cede one of the frontcourt spots to this year’s team because there’s definitely more depth than there is on the 2008 squad. So on the court, 2008 already has a 4-1 advantage offensively and that’s before we have even discussed guarding the ’08 backcourt and the fact that Kobe Bryant was willing to run straight through one of his best friends to show that team he was willing to win and these guys today are having trouble stopping a 17-year-old.
Additionally, the 2008 team didn’t have any game decided by single digits and won its eight games in the Olympics by an average of 28 points. Are we even positive this US team is going to win the gold medal? It definitely should, but there are absolutely a couple squads out there that could take this team down in a one-game scenario — France, Greece, Canada, Serbia.
I genuinely don’t see how there is a debate to even be had here. Maybe we’re actually getting too old and these kids on the internet now don’t remember 2008 and what those guys were like back then. Either way, I’ve never been more certain of anything than the fact that the 2008 USA basketball team would beat the 2024 team by 17 points and win a seven-game series in five.