By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
PARIS, France – During the Paris Olympics, Kevin Durant became the top scorer for Team USA in the Olympic Games and also the first male athlete who win four gold medals in team sports.
However, he thinks that his Olympic legacy is not only the records but much more: “Yeah, I could see somebody beating that number. New records are meant to be broken. Like I said, my goal every time I put this jersey on is to represent my country, my state, my street, my family name”.
According to Durant, the presence of the strongest possible American roster helps basketball in general: “It helped push the game forward. And I think since I’ve been here, we’ve done that. We built off what the Dream Team did in 92 and we carried that torch. And that was the main goal. And as far as playing in Los Angeles 2028, who knows man, we’ll see”.
KD is leaving France having a great experience from the tournament, from Steph Curry, and also from the mentality of the team: “The final was an incredible game, we had an incredible time here in Paris and Lille. So much support for the game of basketball and gratefully I could do it again. Had so much fun, and some stuff like Steph’s shooting was out of body performance, out of body experience”.
“I knew it was going to be special”
According to Durant, there are no egos in Team USA: “So many great players that play in this program that don’t even think about who’s the best player, you just come out here try to contribute as much as you can for the big picture and that’s to continue to push our game forward around the world and tonight was another showing of that”.
Durant revealed that he had taken his decision about Paris last year and LeBron James was also instrumental in creating the team, which has no “official” nickname, but considering the talent and the accolades of everyone involved has been called the “Avengers”: “Grant (Hill) and Steve (Kerr), they came to Brooklyn and they tried to get me to play in the World Cup. So I knew how important it was for us to be here for 2024 and kind of committed there. And I think last summer, Bron had started texting everybody, giving his input on who should be on the team and if everybody was playing. And so when you start sending those texts out, I kind of knew we were all gonna get together”.
Having Steph Curry onboard for the first time in the Olympics, made it all click according to Durant: “This was a special time. I knew Steph was gonna play, as he had never been on an Olympic team before. He had a couple of world championships but never won an Olympic medal. So it was a no-brainer, especially when them two committed. And once the team was built, I kind of knew it was gonna be special”.