LeBron James is hoping to add a third Olympic gold medal to his glittering basketball career when the US team head to Paris later this month. He will be joined by fellow NBA great Stephen Curry in a strong squad and is relishing the chance to line up alongside the Golden State Warriors legend. “It’s an absolute treat,” James said. “The only common goal for us is to play hard and win gold.”
LeBron James is looking forward to playing with Stephen Curry at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer, a player he regards as “one of the greatest to ever play the game”.Team USA began their preparations for the Games, which starts later this month, with a warm-up win over Canada.Curry was on song in the first of five pre-Games exhibition matches and scored 12 points in an 86-72 win, while Anthony Davis added 13.
Two-time Olympic gold medallist James lined up alongside Curry in the first starting team named by US coach Steve Kerr, with Jrue Holiday, Devin Booker and Joel Embiid also involved from the start.”I mean, we got a long way to go to get to where we want to get to, but it’s a good first start,” James said after the match. “I thought, the best thing about tonight is defensively, we were in tune. Offensively, you know all about timing and that’s going to take time with more practices and things of that nature. “But I thought we had great intentions tonight and it was a good start for us.”
The four-time NBA champion is relishing the prospect of playing with Curry – also a four-time NBA winner – as the pair enter the twilight years of their career and hope to claim gold.”It’s pretty amazing that we’re at this point of our careers and we’re able to showcase our talent and do what we love to do and give a little bit back to the fans,” James said on playing with the Golden State Warriors legend.
“So it’s an absolute treat to play with one of the greatest to ever play this game, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer.”He added: “It’s easy to gel when you have one common goal, and only common goal for us is to play hard and win gold. “So shouldn’t take that hard. Shouldn’t take us a long time for us to gel in that sense.
“Looking ahead to the Games and reflecting on the opening game, Curry said that the Olympics is a “fun format” which is “a test and it’s a challenge to try to figure out”.
“There’s the chemistry, there’s the flow and the rhythm, especially on offence, because there’s a temptation to defer, there’s the temptation to overthink every possession because everybody can make a play,” he explained.
“When you have an advantage, you just try to keep the game as simple as possible. That first unit, we struggled with that. But then once we got settled in, seemed like everybody got a little bit more comfortable as we got deeper into the game. “Hopefully the next four exhibition games we have, you’ll see more progress. So, it’s just nice to get your legs underneath you and play some meaningful basketball in July like this.
Coach Kerr is spoilt for choice when it comes to his team selection and revealed he is ready to experiment in the next four warm-up games, starting with a matchup against Australia in Abu Dhabi on Monday.”You can’t go wrong picking a starting lineup with this group,” he said. “I’m going to do something different in the next two games.
We will look at a few different combinations before we settle on anything.“A good first game for us. We are just starting with four days of practice,” Kerr added, reflecting on the performance in the opening game. “You could see the rust on us offensively early. We had a lot of turnovers in the first half especially, but I loved the defensive intensity and the work on the glass. It was a good first effort. “We needed to set a tone for how we want to play and I think we did that.”
