Miracle Remake with French Flair: Predicting a French Men’s Basketball Team Breakthrough at LA28
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44 years ago, Al Michaels emphatically shared with Americans on live television a line that continues to give sports fans goosebumps all these years later: “Do you believe in miracles?—YES!”
In the midst of the prolonged Cold War, the overwhelming upset by the United States Men’s Hockey team over the heavily-favored Soviet Union proved to be a beacon of hope and rallying point for the United States in an instant American sports classic. Popularized by the film Miracle, the late Herb Brooks assembled an assortment of amateur athletes from across the United States to host and eventually beat the daunting four-time defending gold medalist Soviet Union.
On Saturday, the USA men's basketball team bested France in 5x5 competition to secure the team’s fifth consecutive gold medal. In what would be the countries’ third consecutive meeting in the gold medal game, describing the matchup as “David vs. Goliath” would be an understatement: Team USA’s starting five have combined for eight MVP’s and 55 All-Star nominations in the NBA; France’s roster has 3 NBA All-Star bids combined—all from one player, Rudy Gobert. Mismatch? No; the result was a forgone conclusion.
The French stood aside the United States for the entirety of the game until the final minute. 7’4” superstar sensation Victor Wembanyama, who led all scorers with 26 points, sank a mammoth three-pointer in front of the home crowd to cut the USA lead to 93-87 with 55 seconds to play. To the dismay of the host country, the greatest shooter of all-time, USA’s Stephen Curry, took over and tucked the French faithful in for bed time. The newly-minted all-time leading Olympic scorer and four-time gold medalist Kevin Durant (35), along with James (39), Curry (36), Jrue Holiday (34), will now presumably ride off into the sunset with their hardware.
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A year ago in August, Olympic gold medalist Noah Lyles wounded the egotistical NBA media and lit a fire under a sleeping giant of NBA players with a simple, yet fair, question: “World champion of what? The United States?” While NBA fans were enraged, it takes a dose of elementary awareness to realize that Lyles spoke the truth: world championships are won at international world championship events, and of course, the Olympics; not a league (of so many around the world) based in one country.
The NBA media responded with a creative and original narrative: cast LeBron James as Captain America (the same guy who took his talents to the Tune Squad in 2021 instead of the Olympics) as he assembled other NBA stars, “the Avengers,” to join his team. The pure talent on Team USA’s roster is the best it has ever wielded—yes, even better than The Dream Team— as evidenced in the DNP’s registered by Former NBA MVP and 7x All-Star Joel Embiid, newly-crowned NBA Champion and 5x All-Star Jayson Tatum, and 2x All-Star Tyrese Haliburton for what was reported as “matchup purposes.”
Was the battle for gold a mismatch? Absolutely. To the relief excitement of USA basketball fans sweating Lyles’ jab failing to come to fruition, Team USA persevered and won as the heavy favorite. LA28 will be different.
The landscape of Olympic basketball will be drastically different four years from now. Wembanyama, 21, will have charted four valuable years of basketball’s best talent in the NBA. 2023 and 2024 NBA lottery picks Bilal Coulibaly, Zaccharie Risacher, Alex Sarr, and Tidjane Salaün are all 20 years old or younger and will have four years under their belt in the NBA. Projected 2025 lottery pick Nolan Traore could join that group soon enough. National team stalwarts Evan Fournier, Nando de Colo, and Gobert will likely have aged out of international competition—but James, Durant, Curry, and Holiday will probably have as well.
Americans, let these Olympic Games serve as a harsh reminder: the rest of the world is pretty damn good too.
France, let these Olympic Games serve as a beacon of hope: the third time's the charm. Do you believe in miracles?
“I’m learning, and I’m worried for the opponents in a couple years,” said Wembanyama.
He could have simply said, “YES!”
