PARIS– The U.S. men’s basketball team will head to the athletes’ village on Friday to mingle with other Olympians before the opening ceremony. Next week, the group wants to see Simone Biles compete. Stephen Curry looks forward to watching beach volleyball and swimming. And most players have sponsor-related obligations.
It’s been a busy few weeks.
Plus, there are games to play.
This is the challenge of the Olympic Games for some of Paris’ biggest stars: they want to enjoy being part of the spectacle, while remaining aware that they cannot allow the spectacle to distract them from the task of winning a fifth gold medal. consecutively. Olympic veterans like four-time champion Kevin Durant know what to do. First-time Olympians like Curry are figuring it out right away.
“There are times throughout the day where you work, you get treatment and you make sure you’re prepared,” Curry said. “And the rest is allowing yourself to be free to be part of the Olympic experience as a whole. I think this will be contagious, the joy of being in the moment. We say ‘be where your feet are’ when it comes to enjoying the games we play too, because it goes by quickly. We hope it will only be six games to win gold.”
Thursday’s training – the first for the Americans in Paris, after training on Wednesday at the arena a few hours away in Villeneuve-D’Ascq, France, where group games begin this weekend – it was the one where U.S. coach Steve Kerr hoped the team would start to really focus on the task at hand Olympic.
The trip around the world – from Las Vegas to Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, to London – that the Americans took to prepare for Paris, with five friendly games along the way, is over.
“The time has come,” Kerr said. “We are no longer traveling. Was here. We have six games. We have to get into pool play, advance and it’s like the NCAA Tournament. It’s 40 minutes of forced attention and focus and we can’t allow teams to surpass us in terms of effort and energy like we did. another night against Germany, how we did against South Sudan.”
It’s been a good balance so far. The last friendly game against Germany was on Monday, in London, where he had a day off on Tuesday to sightsee. Wednesday was a travel and training day, Thursday was a full training day and Friday was a day off to go to the village and then for the opening ceremony, where LeBron James is one of the flag bearers of the USA alongside tennis star Coco Gauff.
Saturday we get back to work – training and traveling north, back to Villeneuve-D’Ascq – and then the tournament starts on Sunday against Serbia.
“I always say we can do all things,” Durant said. “You gain a lot of energy when you come here. So, we gain energy to play, obviously, but you want to go support other sports, other athletes that you might know. And it simply works. As I said, the energy level is high. You kind of feed off of it, to be honest.”
Kerr said he’s not worried. Everyone on the US team is a proven professional, accustomed to handling multiple responsibilities at once.
He is sure that there will be a complete understanding of when it is time to lock yourself in and when it is time to let go. And he will ask veteran Olympians to explain to newcomers how all the pieces ideally fit together.
“All these guys are businesses unto themselves,” Kerr said. “They have things. They have business partners. Then they will be pulled in all directions. Everyone has a family here. This has to be one of the great experiences of our lives, but the best way to make it an amazing experience is to win a gold medal, obviously.”
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