James won bronze with Team USA at the 2004 Summer Olympics and gold in both 2008 and 2012, but he opted against playing in 2016 and 2020.

 

The Olympic post was likely born from the fact that Team USA fell 113-111 to Germany in the 2023 FIBA World Cup semifinals Friday, meaning they will not win the World Cup for second consecutive time.

In 2019, the Americans had their worst showing ever at the FIBA World Cup, coming in seventh, but they bounced back to win gold at the 2020 Summer Games with a roster headlined by Durant, Tatum, Lillard and Booker.

It marked Team USA’s fourth consecutive gold medal in me𝚗’s basketball at the Olympics, and it lent hope to a World Cup bounce back, but the Americans can finish no better than third.

Although the United States was favored to win the FIBA World Cup and the roster was solid, none of the true American superstars were on the team.

In fact, Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton and Jaren Jackson Jr. were the only players who were NBA All-Stars last season and on the Team USA roster.

The 2020 Olympic squad was more star-studded, but even that team was missing names like LeBron, Curry, Leonard, Butler and Davis, so it wasn’t as dominant as it potentially could have been.

While the 1992 Dream Team is the standard for USA basketball and will likely never be matched, the imagined team posed by The Dunk Central would arguably be the closest thing to the Dream Team yet.

It would also perhaps be the Olympic swan song for the 38-year-old James, as he will be 43 when the 2028 Olympics roll around, and it is unclear if he will still be playing.

Team USA has remained atop the basketball world at the past two Olympics without LeBron, but there is little doubt that they would be a more complete and dangerous team with the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and arguably the best player in the world as part of the squad.