The Olympics are over, and now, it’s time to start counting down until the start of the NBA season in about two months. The league was incredibly well represented in Paris this summer, as every member of Team USA came from the NBA, while the rest of the international field was loaded with talent from the best league on the planet.
As soccer fans know, there can be some serious pitfalls that come from overestimating how the results of an international tournament can impact the upcoming club season — there are countless examples of players performing at a high level for their country, going back to their professional team, and not reaching those levels again. Still, there were things that we can take away from the Olympics in the lead-up to this season, and we decided to highlight some of the most important observations on the heels of one of the best international basketball tournaments we’ve ever seen.
1. The Warriors have to be all-in on building a contender around Steph Curry
Steph Curry can become an unrestricted free agent after the 2025-26 season, when he will be 38 years old. Now, I, for one, cannot ever imagine Curry suiting up for a team other than the Golden State Warriors, but I would have said the same thing about Klay Thompson eight weeks ago, and look at how that turned out.
We saw during the Olympics that Curry is still capable of being absolutely unbelievable, the alpha dog on a court that features the best basketball players on the planet. He can take over a game like no one else on the planet. And heading into this season, Golden State has been awfully careful about not pushing all of their chips into the center of the table to get him another superstar running mate — Draymond Green is obviously not going anywhere, while they’ve held onto all their young players (Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, Brandin Podziemski) and draft capital. They have made some really nice moves to bolster their rotation with veterans, like Kyle Anderson, Buddy Hield, and De’Anthony Melton, and I think you can argue that this is a better all-around team than it was a year ago.
The question: Is that a good enough team to seriously compete for a championship in the Western Conference? I do not think so, and as of this writing, FanDuel gives them the ninth-best odds of winning the West. Wanting to be in a good position for life after Curry whenever that comes — whether that’s in two years or five-plus years down the road — is understandable, but they flat-out owe it to him to do whatever it takes to win another title. The Olympics showed he can still take a team to the promised land, and as a result, there’s no team that we’re going to pay more attention to once we get to the trade deadline than the Warriors.
2. The Lakers and Suns have to take advantage of their stars
You can make the case that four of the five best players (along with Curry) on Team USA played for the Lakers and the Suns. LeBron James is LeBron James, even as he’s on the verge of turning 40, and sure looks like someone who can be the best player on a championship team when the going gets tough. Anthony Davis was excellent as well, and while we’ve never seen him hit shots the way he did in the Bubble, we got a glimpse of the best version of himself, a defensive force of nature who is able to score efficiently and play off of LeBron perfectly.
Kevin Durant just did what he always does on the international stage, as he is arguably the best pure scorer that we have ever seen set foot on a basketball court and showed no signs of slowing down as he gets older. And Steve Kerr went out of his way to praise Devin Booker for a reason, as he happily accepted a role as the guy who ties everything together on both ends of the floor and takes advantage of his opportunities when they pop up — he battled on defense, was always willing to make the selfless play, and he was a killer whenever he got a chance to shoot the ball, as he led the team by hitting 56.5 percent of his threes (13-for-23).
It’s not a stretch to say that the front offices in Los Angeles and Phoenix have taken swings that have just not worked over the years, like the Russell Westbrook trade that is still hurting the Lakers (which, it must be said, happened with the blessing of LeBron and AD) and the Bradley Beal trade that cost the Suns everything they had and had less-than-ideal results in year one. All four of these guys positioned themselves to have monster years on the back of their Olympic performances if they can remain healthy, which is necessary after both teams failed to get out of the first round last year. How the rest of their teams — from the front office to the end of the roster — take advantage of that will be fascinating to watch.
3. The Nuggets are somehow an even bigger question mark than they were before
Obviously, as long as Nikola Jokic is there, I don’t think you can be too terribly concerned about Denver winning games and him putting up numbers. As we saw throughout the Olympics, the dude is still incredible, and his ability to be the sun around which everything revolves for a basketball team is unparalleled right now.
But Jamal Murray was just outright bad. Murray, one of the players Canada hopes would be a foundational piece of a medal contender, averaged six points per game on 29 percent shooting from the field and 14.3 percent from three, with 3.8 assists, three rebounds, and 2.3 turnovers in 20.5 minutes a night. This happening while he’s eligible for an extension with the Nuggets — which lost a crucial rotation player for the second summer in a row — just adds to the intrigue.
Understandably, Murray has built up enough equity in Denver that this can be written off as a bad stretch by a guy who never looked 100 percent, and who had a role on the national team that is nothing like his role as Jokic’s running mate. Still, the Nuggets need him to be their no-doubt second-best player and a guy who is capable of performing at the All-Star level everyone has long believed he can achieve — Murray has famously never made an All-Star team nor an All-NBA team despite his bonafides as a playoff performer, and while the former has largely been waved away because of the latter, at some point, Murray’s got to show that the team can rely on him to stay healthy and consistently perform over an 82 game season. The Olympics did not help in that regard, but if he looks good at the start of this upcoming season, no one will remember how he played in Paris. But if not? It’ll be hard not to look back on this tournament as a sign of things to come.
4. Wemby’s here
Yes, Victor Wembanyama’s numbers at the Olympics weren’t always great, as he really struggled from the field in the quarters and the semis against Canada and Germany, respectively. But this guy is so clearly the best defensive basketball player in the world that it’s hard to debate, as he shuts down the paint and is able to use his length and athleticism to deter even the best players from trying him. And when the lights were at their brightest, he delivered: He was out of his mind in the gold medal game against the United States, going for 26 points on 11-for-19 shooting from the field and 3-for-8 shooting from three. After the game, he had this to say: “I’m learning, and I’m worried for the opponents in a couple of years.”
I’m worried for the opponents that are going up against him next season, as the dude talks like a super villain and is capable of backing it up when games start. He has everything it takes to be the best basketball player on the planet, and he’s coming off of an Olympics in his home country where he was unable to get to the top of the mountain despite his best efforts. Add in the fact that the San Antonio Spurs brought in a pair of rock solid veterans to help bring him along in Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes, and I think we’re going to see Wemby avoid any sort of sophomore slump in a big way.
5. The Celtics may have a way to avoid complacency
The hardest thing about winning a championship is doing it again. You run the risk of complacency setting in when a team runs it back, which the Boston Celtics are doing on the heels of their NBA title this past season. Now, there’s no guarantee this happens, and some teams are motivated by their desire to win again — Joe Mazzulla has struck up a friendship with Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, who is about as good of an influence as there is in this regard.
Something that could certainly help: Having your two-best players enter the season with a chip on their respective shoulders. Jaylen Brown was very clearly furious about his exclusion from Team USA this summer, and it certainly seems like there is no bad blood between himself and Derrick White or anything like that. Jayson Tatum losing his rotation spot twice against Serbia was turned into a gigantic deal, and when he did play, he struggled to get into a rhythm. He was also candid about how strange this summer was for him after the team won gold.
Is it possible that none of this matters, and the Celtics spend the whole year faffing about because they’ve already won? Sure, but I wouldn’t bet on that. Is it possible they were going to have a way to fend off complacency no matter what? Once again, sure, but it sure does help that there were things about the Team USA experience that gave two of the best players in the world something to push them, which we think will help Boston keep its vice grip on the top of the East.
