First things first with regards to the title of this post. Let's have a few NBA legends share their expressions when you tell them that a Gold Medal is essentially an NBA Title or an NBA MVP..
Now that we have that cleared up, we can dive in a little deeper. Is Olympic competition slowly getting better for Team USA basketball? Absolutely. Is it still considered an travesty/major upset if a team is able to beat the United States? Most certainly.
Present guys like Carmelo Anthony, Demarcus Cousins and others who will never win an NBA title can of course be proud of their gold medal but in the eyes of the NBA Hall of Fame, a gold medal means nothing. It's more of an international marketing opportunity for players than it is a basketball achievement. Ask John Stockton if he would trade his Dream Team Gold Medal for an NBA Title and he'd be at your doorstep within the hour. Same for Charles Barkely. Shit, you could ask Steph Curry to trade one of his MVP trophies for a gold medal and he'd say no after 2 seconds of thinking.
Congrats to Team USA for continuing our international basketball dominance that is fully-expected every Olympics. Yay! Now it's time to move on and pursue more important NBA accolades. But never forget one of the greatest dunks of all-time happened with Team USA..
Present guys like Carmelo Anthony, Demarcus Cousins and others who will never win an NBA title can of course be proud of their gold medal but in the eyes of the NBA Hall of Fame, a gold medal means nothing. It's more of an international marketing opportunity for players than it is a basketball achievement. Ask John Stockton if he would trade his Dream Team Gold Medal for an NBA Title and he'd be at your doorstep within the hour. Same for Charles Barkely. Shit, you could ask Steph Curry to trade one of his MVP trophies for a gold medal and he'd say no after 2 seconds of thinking.
Congrats to Team USA for continuing our international basketball dominance that is fully-expected every Olympics. Yay! Now it's time to move on and pursue more important NBA accolades. But never forget one of the greatest dunks of all-time happened with Team USA..
By: El Mijo