There is still one more game left for the gold medal against the host France, and it will not be a walkover game.

But still, we really need to cherish what we just witnessed in the semifinal against Serbia.

For three quarters, Team USA looked out of sorts and uninspired, heading into the 4th quarter down 13 to Serbia, a team they had just beaten twice in the past three weeks, between the group stage and the pre-Olympic showcase, by 26 points both times.

Obviously Serbia is a legit team with not only Nikola Jokic, the best basketball player in the world right now, as well as a handful of other NBA players like Bogdan Bogdanovic, who led Team Serbia with 20 points.

But something was different about this matchup. This one was for keeps, an elimination game, and Serbia turned it up.

Usually when watching Team USA play basketball, I’m conditioned to think there’s no way they can lose. They might start slow, but they’re always going to come back and win by 40. That’s kind of how it was when I was growing up.

But it’s not like that anymore. Team Serbia has a three-time NBA MVP. The rest of the world has really closed the gap with America in basketball. We are not invincible anymore. We may have more star power, but the rest of the world plays team ball, and that neutralizes a lot of our talent advantage and star power.

So when we were down 15+ against Serbia, I knew we could come back, but I wasn’t certain that we actually would. Again, we are not invincible anymore. We cannot just sleepwalk our way to 40 point wins in international play anymore. The world has really narrowed the gap with us over the past 30 or so years. The level of competition in international basketball is miles and miles ahead of where it was in 1992 when NBA players were first allowed to play in the Olympics.

Anyone who follows basketball closely should know this. The first wakeup call was when Team USA won Bronze in the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Then, last year at the FIBA World Cup in the Philippines, Team USA not only failed to win the whole thing, they failed to even get on the podium. They lost to Germany in the semifinals and then lost to Canada in the Bronze medal game.

The 2023 FIBA World Cup team was mostly younger guys. The oldest player on the team was 28 year old Bobby Portis. Then you had guys like Mikal Bridges, BI, Brunson, JJJ, Ant Man, Paolo, Hali, Austin Reaves–it was a lot of younger guys. And they did not get the job done. It was embarrassing for Team USA.

We’ve won 7 of the last 8 Gold Medals in Olympic play. America has won 16 total gold medals in basketball, and there is only one other country in the world that still exists that has actually won gold before, Argentina. (The Soviet Union won 2 and Yugoslavia won gold in 1980). The 2023 FIBA World Cup was supposed to be a “passing of the torch” moment for Team USA where the new generation carried on the legacy of American dominance and winning on the world stage.

Not long after the failure in the Philippines, rumors began swirling that LeBron, Steph and KD were going to suit up for Team USA in the Olympics one last time in Paris. It was eventually confirmed, and when the news broke, it was pretty extraordinary. LeBron is now 39, turning 40 in December; Steph is 36, KD is 35 and will be 36 next month. It’s rare to see guys that age playing at a high level in the NBA, period, but to add a full Olympic run to their workload, at their ages? It’s unheard of.

NBA basketball is over by mid-June and starts up again in late October, meaning you really only get a 3-4 month offseason, and if you play in the Olympics, you basically have a 6-week offseason because training camp starts up in late September.

For these older guys to accept the wear and tear of an Olympic schedule on their bodies is really something special to begin with. LeBron, Steph and KD have nothing left to prove. LeBron has been a part of two Olympic gold teams, 2008 and 2012. KD has won three Olympic golds–2012, 2016 and 2020. Steph has actually never played in the Olympics for Team USA before Paris, so it’s understandable that he wanted to do this as it’s the one last box to check on his resume.

In a broader sense, I think that given the context of Team USA’s high profile failure in the 2023 FIBA World Cup, this Olympic games is really about the older generation getting Team USA back on top, and showing the younger generation how it’s done. This team is a mixture of old guys and young guys–you’ve got the old guys LeBron, Steph and KD leading the way, then you’ve got the “established and older but still in their prime” guys like Embiid, AD, Jrue and Derrick White. And then you’ve got the future of Team USA: Ant Man, Booker, Tatum, Bam and Hali. This is a learning experience for those guys.

But in terms of basketball legacies, this Olympic run is really a capstone for the careers of LeBron, Steph and KD. Other than All Star games, this is the first time LeBron and Steph have been on the same team in their careers. For a decade, LeBron had battles on the biggest stages with those two guys; some of the most iconic battles in NBA history. They were bitter rivals for many years.

In recent years, you can definitely see that they’ve become close friends and have a strong mutual respect for one another. But there’s a beauty in putting all that history aside to come together for the National Team. You can tell that these guys have A LOT of pride in representing Team USA on the world stage, and it means a ton to them.

When the history of their era in the NBA is written, or I guess turned into a documentary, this Olympic run will be the final, glorious chapter. It’s the defining moment for their careers–their arcs have all converged. After being rivals for so long, with one guy hoisting the trophy as confetti flies around him while the other sulks back to the locker room with his head hung in defeat–now they will have a chance to hoist a trophy together. It’s the one time in their careers where their victory will not come at the expense of the others.

If Team USA had just waltzed to a 30 point win over Serbia, and then done the same to France in the Gold Medal game, it would have been a nice moment.

But to see them truly tested and pushed to the brink, and respond in the way they did–it was something magical. Steph Curry had 36 points in that game. LeBron had a triple double. KD had 9 points but was instrumental in the fourth down the stretch. Those three guys were the ones that closed this game out. They simply took over and refused to let Team USA lose. Embiid was excellent as well after being maligned for most of his time in Paris.

LeBron scores to tie it up at 84, but then Serbia gets a bucket to go ahead 86-84. Then Steph rattles in a three to take the lead for the first time, and you could really feel it. LeBron hits a beautiful running layup in transition to stretch the lead to 89-86. That was when you knew the big boys were taking over and something special was happening. Curry gets a steal off a Bogdanovic pass and takes it coast to coast for a high-difficulty layup in transition to make it 91-86, that’s about when I transcended.

But then hits an impossible shot plus and and-one to cut the lead to 2, and the game is hanging in the balance again. Next trip down the floor was KD’s moment. You can see Carmelo Anthony at the bottom of the screen–it looks like he’s coaching the team and calling out a play, and I think they even ran the play he called, which was wild. KD calls for an iso, crosses up his man, then pulls up for a long jumper with the shot clock expiring, money. 93-89, Team USA with the lead, 34 seconds to go.

The final few minutes were a movie. It’s the reason those three went to Paris.

Again, if every game had been a blowout, it wouldn’t have been as special. I’m so glad we got to witness that.

You’ve got these three old heads who have no business being in the Olympics at their ages, rivals for most of their careers, coming together to lead Team USA to glory.

When it was confirmed that LeBron, Steph and KD were playing in the Olympics last year, I knew they were not going to let us lose. The gold was ours. There was a stretch during the Serbia game where I started to doubt, but when they took over in crunch time, it was just like, “Yep. They were never going to let us lose. Can’t believe I ever doubted.”

The Redeem Team in 2008 was awesome to watch because they basically just dominated everybody. They were on a mission to erase that bronze in 2004. That was fun.

2012, I don’t really remember that Olympics too much. 2016 I remember more for Michael Phelps than basketball.

2020 Olympics, I’ll be honest, I didn’t really watch much of it at all.

But this year is the most dialed in to the Olympics I’ve been in my life since 2008.

When I say this is the greatest basketball moment of our lifetimes, I mean that in a collective sense. For me, personally, the 2016 Finals was the peak. But that’s not the case for everyone. For some, it was the worst basketball moment of their life–if you’re a Warriors fan, or a LeBron hater or what have you.

But this was a moment that everyone could enjoy and cherish. This was for Team USA.

I’m just so glad that we’ve got the three icons of the league, in their twilight years, coming together for one last run on the Olympic stage, and to show the younger generation what Team USA basketball is about. We take this Team USA stuff seriously. We accept nothing less than gold. We go all out on the world stage. This means something to us.

I think maybe that’s part of the reason LeBron, KD and Steph did this. And it’s just a guess on my part. But my guess is that they thought they’d be able to leave Team USA in good hands with the youngsters last year, and when that went wrong, they said, “Unacceptable. We have to show them how it’s done.”

When I think of it in the context of their whole careers–I remember watching Steph play college ball at Davidson, I remember KD at Texas, and I think about the first time I ever heard of LeBron James from Akron, Ohio. We’ve watched their whole careers unfold, and seen them go from young guys trying to build their legacies, to now the oldest players in the league, the most decorated legends of all time. Now, literally, carrying the American flag on the world stage and setting the tone for the next generation. It’s just a beautiful thing.

You hear a lot of people shit on the NBA, game isn’t what it used to be, league is soft now, these guys don’t compare to the 90s generation, they don’t care, yada yada.

I don’t want to hear that shit.

That game, yesterday, was everything we love about basketball condensed into about 5 minutes. It was pure love of the game, American pride, will to win, killer instinct, team basketball, the older generation showing the younger generation the way.

It was everything.

Those three guys have given so much to the game of basketball and us as fans, and I’m so grateful they still had more to give.