PARIS – LeBron James knows there aren’t many moments like this left. He’s 39. He’s entering his 22nd professional season. It’s logical to expect that the Paris Olympics will be his last time on this stage, and who knows if he’s got one more NBA championship run in him.
If this is the Olympic finish line, though, he’s not sputtering toward it.
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He’s leading — on pace to do so in a way that the U.S. has never seen before.
James could win the third gold medal of his Olympic career on Saturday night, when the U.S. takes on France for the title in Paris. If it happens, he’ll become just the third men’s player with at least three golds; Kevin Durant would have a record four golds should the U.S. win, and James would tie Carmelo Anthony for second on the all-time list with three Olympic titles.
“We know what we’re here for,” said James, who was one of the flag bearers along with tennis star Coco Gauff, tasked with leading the U.S. into the opening ceremony.
James enters the final as the U.S. leader in points (14.8 per game), rebounds (7.0 per game) and assists (8.2 per game) during these Olympics. Since all those stats started being tracked — assists were added to the box score at the Olympics starting with 1976 — no U.S. men’s player has ever led an Olympic team in all three of those categories. Some have come close, notably Durant at the Tokyo Games three years ago. But nobody has finished atop the list in all three categories.
So, yet another accolade may await. U.S. coach Steve Kerr needs only one word to describe how James — the NBA's all-time scoring leader and the U.S. all-time Olympic leader in assists, by a wide margin — is still playing, still dominating, at 39.
The word: “Crazy.”
“This is maybe one of the best things about this trip for me, to see LeBron behind the scenes, see the preparation, see the focus and getting a picture for why he is who he is,” Kerr said. “It’s just amazing to watch him. He loves the game so much. He loves the work. He loves his teammates. There’s an energy and a joy to LeBron that just sort of spreads through the locker room. He’s obviously one of the very best all-time players, but it goes so far beyond one thing. It’s just everything, the whole package. He’s just brilliant.”
He’s played brilliantly all summer, too.
James, to hear U.S. coaches tell the story, began setting the tone for how this team would operate from the very first practice in Las Vegas more than a month ago. He could have been elsewhere that day; his son Bronny James was making his summer league debut for the Los Angeles Lakers in San Francisco, a game that his dad — and now Lakers teammate — surely would have been courtside for in any other circumstance. He was in Vegas instead, watching highlights after the first practice.
And while the people in leadership roles for USA Basketball like Grant Hill, Sean Ford and Kerr were technically the ones who assembled the roster, James took on the unofficial role of principal recruiter. When the U.S. finished fourth at the World Cup last summer, James was the one on the phone asking players like Stephen Curry if they wanted to team up for an Olympic run this year.
“We’re all different as we get older, but the thing about greatness is that you adjust and find ways to continue to be effective,” Durant said. “And that’s what LeBron has done at that age. He’s not running and jumping the same way as he was when he was 25 years old, but he’s still jumping pretty high and running pretty fast.”
He’s also still doing things that nobody else does.
James had a triple-double in the comeback win over Serbia in the semifinals on Thursday night. It was the second triple-double of his Olympic career. Every other men's Olympic player ever, all of them from every team in the world, have two — combined. James has two himself.
“He’s still a freaking monster,” U.S. center Joel Embiid said. “I don’t understand how he’s doing it. It’s been fun to watch.”
And Saturday may be the final time he can be watched in the Olympics. He'll be 43 when the Games come to Los Angeles in 2028. Never say never, especially with James, but this game in France is probably the last time he'll wear the national team uniform.
When James has worn USA across his chest, the national team has won each of its last 46 games on the international stage.
He'd do anything to push that streak to 47 on Saturday night.
“Whatever it takes for our team to be successful, that's what I'll do,” James said. “That's always going to be my approach. Whatever the game calls for, whatever it takes to be successful.”
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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games