Olympic duos we’d love to see in NBA: LeBron James and Stephen Curry are a match made in basketball heaven

The Paris Olympics 2024 are over and the America’s US men basketball team has won a fifth consecutive Olympic gold, albeit in a hugely dramatic style. Serbia had the Americans dead to rights until it went dark from 3 (0 for 10 in the fourth quarter) as Stephen Curry was on an all-time heater.

That was followed by a scare in the final against France and surprisingly Curry came to the rescue once again with four threes from a two-minute span to ensure that the U. S. heaved a huge sigh of relief.

In my view that was the most entertaining Olympic basketball tournament that I ever witnessed. Curry was all “no freakin’ way he just did that” and the two nerve-wracking finishes the Americans had to survive were not because they were toying with the competition. Indeed, they were practically compelled to take this match to a higher level as they rose to the best of what each could offer collectively in order to win this gold medal.

Serbia and France gave all of us a pleasant gift to witness those two performances of Americans. It was just an extraordinary couple weeks of basketball and, true to form as every Olympic competition has been since NBA players first began participating in 1992, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the whole event is observing all of these superstar players sharing the court with each other.

It makes you wonder: Who are the Olympic duos that you’d prefer seeing being teammates in the NBA? There are actually quite a few but let’s consider three – two of those are probably completely unrealistic. But hell, it’s the offseason. I thought it is time that we could have a little fun.

LeBron James and Stephen Curry

LeBron James and Stephen Curry have since emerged as some of the hoop stars that made their mark in hoop in the period that follows.

It’s not just that these two have been the main characters of one of the greatest rivalries in the history of NBA, and sports in general, but as we witnessed during the exhibition games in Paris, they are ideally suited to each other on the basketball court.

Seeing James lead the U. S. offense was as basic and as enjoyable as basketball could be to him at times. At base, he has been the antithesis of Michael his whole life, an artisan who owned the ball as much as the team and as big-picture as a 6-foot-8 man can be. What we would essentially be getting is basketball’s version of Montana to Rice due to Curry being not just the league’s best shooter but also the best route runner any NBA player has ever been.

The greatest quarterback. The greatest receiver. Two players with sixth-sense intuitions on the court are feeling space before it exists; LeBron passing to not where Curry is, but where Curry is going to be. Each time Curry comes out of this maze that he has created for himself, the ball is either there waiting for him, or he gets there just in time to meet the ball and it would be in the perfect position this man, the world’s most proficient marksman, just has to pull the fastest trigger on the face of the earth.

“You just stand in awe of his talent,” James added when discussing the game in which he played with Curry in Paris. “Of course, I have witnessed it closer, having him on the other end, you just fight for stops and look for other means to solve it, but run and look for him, keep passing the ball to him.”

That is certainly but one chapter and in that special book known as the playbook. Such pick and rolls become an entirely new unsolvable problem. Make Curry the screener, as Steve Kerr did in the most crucial stretches Team USA faced in Paris, to either get Curry open at the top, or force LeBron to take it strong to the basket with a couple of big men chasing him.

Now flip it. Feed it to Curry and watch him fill up on pull-up threes until double-team becomes mandatory by which point he’ll throw to what would be the most deadly short roll in NBA history as LeBron James, the best passer since Magic Johnson, the 4-on-3 board quickly becomes his own personal chessboard. This is why defenses could not even dream of containing LeBron now at the edge of 40 and Curry only a few years younger.

Now, is an NBA marriage of the two greatest players of the previous decade an even halfway realistic possibility? Almost certainly not. That is why it was such a treat to see them in action in Paris because you will never see those two together ever again I imagine.

Oh well, who would have ever believed Curry and Kevin Durant would ever play in the same team or the Warriors and Lakers are in a position to fight for a title. We know that the Warriors were at least the ones that initiated the conversation about trading for LeBron at the deadline last year. ESPN says LeBron shot the idea down, though the current Olympic experience may make him want to consider it. Maybe an opinion that Klay Thompson left the Warriors who seem not interested to blow it up one last time for one ultimate run for a fifth championship of Curry has made him, if only in his heart, more open to just think of leaving the team?

Once more, it’s probably never really going to occur. But if we are to dream then we have no choice but to dream the dream as big as we can possibly imagine.

Kevin Durant and Anthony Edwards

It will be very important for KD to have his own team because the beauty of Durant is that he fits on any team with any co-star. He’s Paul George if he became the superhero of the morning. Edwards, however, is Devin Booker strapped to a rocket booster. The KD-Ant probably would not be as explosive as a LeBron/Curry partnership, but oh boy, the back and forth between the two as great shooters-spectacle of great scoring output would be cool to watch.

Edwards is a naturally joyous guy, and getting to see him geek out over the chance to play in Paris with his childhood hero in Durant was pretty neat. When Ant caught the lob pass from Durant for the dunk in the Olympics, the same joy of a dream that has come through floated from him as he landed.

We know that Durant can apply his skills as a side-kick; he is the all-time great Olympic player and integrated himself seamlessly into the Golden State at its peak and improved it. That was a question many people had about Edwards as he declared himself Team USA’s No. 1 option: Would he be able to restrain himself from carrying through with the takeover sentiment most of the times when diplomacy was needed? Well, he had no qualms doing it in Paris where he was able to easily alternate between unabashed star player and ridiculously unnecessary help.

Of course, in an ideal world, maybe the Suns with the long-term prospect of Booker they would target a younger player while the TWolves want to capitalize on this window, which could have been the reason for trading Durant for KAT.

I’ll tell you this: Durant and Edwards with that Minnesota defence would be fun and Towns alone can make booker and Beal a superstar with five-out spacing. Actually I am trying to persuade myself on this issue!

Nikola Jokic and Bogdan Bogdanovic