Steph Curry ends golden era for Team USA

There is a difference between being part of history and making it. The latter requires magic, a legend, a moment. It takes, it turns out, someone like Steph Curry. Gold medals are handed out every few years, but the ones we remember are the ones with a story to tell: like the one from a legendary team on the brink of collapse, saved by a series of increasingly absurd jumpers from the greatest shooter who ever lived.

Team USA won gold at the Paris Olympics, as expected from the moment the Americans assembled one of the most decorated squads in history. LeBron James, who first played for the national team two decades ago, assembled a team of former MVPs and All-NBA standouts. Kevin Durant became the first man to win four Olympic gold medals in basketball, passing Lisa Leslie as USA Basketball’s all-time leading scorer along the way. The U.S.’s 98-87 win over France on Saturday marked Curry’s first medal in his first Olympics, and at age 36, it will likely be his last. Still, he provided Team USA with one of its most indelible images in his one Olympic run: a dramatic, long-range, miscued shot to win the game and the gold, hoisted over the top of two closing French defenders:

Historically, USA Basketball has been almost too dominant for plays to stick in the public’s memory. There’s Kobe Bryant’s silencing jumper in the 2008 gold medal game against Spain. There’s Vince Carter’s hurdling dunk over Frederic Weis from the 2000 Sydney games. Then there’s a blur of breakaway finishes by Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley and Dwyane Wade, none of which are specific to the way points in a blowout usually are. Curry’s impossible 3-pointer with 35 seconds left was different — not just because of the sensational way his shots often are, but because of the stakes surrounding them.

Basketball worldwide has never been stronger. It took a huge comeback against Serbia, a team led by the best basketball player in the world, for the Americans to even make it to the semifinals. The leading scorer in Saturday’s gold medal game was not Curry, but 20-year-old Frenchman Victor Wembanyama, the future of the game, dominating in a way we’ve never seen before. A team led by three all-timers needed all three to hold off France, and a signature shot from Curry to decide the game. The way Team USA slogged to a bronze medal in 2004 was largely an indicator of American arrogance. The fact that this year’s gold medal game was winnable with three minutes to go speaks volumes about how far the sport has grown internationally in the past 20 years, and what it takes to win gold now.

In 2028, the Americans will have to reach that level in a very different way. “I don’t see myself playing in L.A.,” James told reporters after winning the gold. Durant was a bit more ambiguous on the issue, but he’ll be 39 at the next Summer Games and Curry will be 40. None of the three will be able to lead Team USA, even if they defy the odds to participate. All of which means that USA Basketball is celebrating not just a gold medal, but the end of an era. The torch is passing, even if no one inside the program knows which rising star will be ready to receive it. Anthony Edwards has a compelling claim and now real Olympic experience to back it up. There’s a gulf, however, between the Edwards of today and the icons he could replace four years from now. Jayson Tatum could be up to the task, but he’s just come off an Olympic run in which he was barely a factor on the court and didn’t make a single jump shot. Tyrese Haliburton will undoubtedly be a bigger factor for the games in LA, and Devin Booker and Bam Adebayo should still be in the mix if they choose to go for a third gold. But will any of those three have the game and presence of USA Basketball’s setback statesmen?

Imagining Team USA’s next gold medal requires a bit of imagination, if only because the team has leaned so heavily on its old guard this year. Curry struggled for much of the Olympics, but put up a ridiculous 60 points in the final two games while making 17 of 27 shots from beyond the arc. Only two other players (Bogdan Bogdanovic and Dennis Schroder) made 17 3-pointers in the entire tournament. And when France cut the deficit to a single possession with just under three minutes left, Curry made four 3-pointers in just over two minutes to stave off the rally and seal the game.

When the decisive moments arrived, Curry ran pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll with James, the culmination of a decade of competition between the two rivals. LeBron’s teams have often focused Curry on defense, using his man as a screener for James, dragging the smaller guard into a physical matchup he could never win. On Saturday, it was Curry running that exact same screen, terrorizing France’s overmatched guards. Those sequences sent the French defense into a desperate scramble, sometimes doubling up on Durant in an attempt to contain the unstoppable.

Despite all the questions over the past few weeks about how and who Team USA should play, the three generational titans in the lineup showed an immediate understanding of how to play with each other. Curry and Durant immediately fell into old patterns from their three seasons together in Golden State, to the point that KD instructed his less experienced teammates to wait for Steph to get open. By putting the ball in LeBron’s hands, he was able to exploit Steph’s cuts at every opportunity, paying off long before Curry’s own shots did. The feel for the game that made LeBron and Steph such perfect opponents ultimately transformed them into perfect teammates. And when their joint project faltered or faltered, they were able to swing the ball to Durant, the ultimate shortcut to world-class offense.

Curry may have had the last word (it was night night), but Durant had an answer for nearly every previous French run—as he had against so many of Team USA’s previous opponents. It was his pull-up that decided the game against Serbia. His run of scoring and playmaking that held France at bay in the second quarter. His jumpers that answered scores from Mathias Lessort and Nando De Colo, snuffing out momentum buckets before they had a chance to take hold. The most accomplished scorer in program history joined the starting lineup for the first time in the tournament on Saturday and delivered time and time again, never once commanding a game for himself. That’s what it takes to play with legends, even for a legend himself.

Behind Curry’s immortal moment, after all, was Durant, the deadliest scorer in international basketball, dutifully transforming himself into a screener. Arguably the greatest player in the history of the game spread the floor from the weak side. Anthony Davis waited in the dunking spot. Devin Booker parked himself in the corner. A team of All-Stars and champions watched from the bench as Curry unleashed his fourth straight insane shot to make history. Together, Team USA then borrowed Steph to put France, and a home crowd of 20,000, to bed.