As Team USA begins forming it’s roster for the 2024 Olympics, LeBron James is reportedly considered part of their core.

By Jacob Rude@JacobRude  Feb 28, 2024, 5:51pm PST  2 Comments / 2 New

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While the Olympics are still some six months away, USA Basketball is already prepping it’s roster for the trip to Paris. And one of the first names on their list probably shouldn’t be a surprise.

LeBron James has made his desire to play on the Olympic team this upcoming summer known and it appears to be a mutual interest. In an article on Wednesday, Shams Charania and Joe Vardon of The Athletic reported that LeBron is among the core of players USA Basketball is targeting for Paris.

In USA Basketball’s recent discussions with stakeholders, Boston Celtics star guard, Olympic gold medalist and NBA champion Jrue Holiday, and Phoenix Suns All-NBA guard and Olympic gold winner Devin Booker are mentioned along with Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Joel Embiid and Jayson Tatum as the expected core of the team barring injury, multiple NBA sources and sources close to the American team told The Athletic.

LeBron very likely won’t be the only Laker on the roster. Anthony Davis has gone as far to say that if asked, he would play for Team USA this summer. According to Shams and Vardon, there’s a good chance he’ll be asked.

Only Embiid is a “traditional” big man (in the modern sense of the position — he shots 37 percent from 3-point range as a 7-footer), so the Americans would need to add more size. The Miami Heat’s Bam Adebayo and Los Angeles Lakers’ Anthony Davis are considered strong candidates for the roster as well, and Davis said during All-Star weekend that he would play for the Americans if asked.

Considering how poorly things went at the FIBA World Cup last year and how few stars took place in a COVID-impacted 2020 Olympics, it seems plausible and likely that more stars will likely be willing to play this time.

Injuries are already throwing wrenches into that plan, though. Of the names mentioned in the piece, Joel Embiid is currently out, LeBron James is nursing an ankle injury, Anthony Davis has been a constant fixture on the injury report this season with a handful of injuries and Kevin Durant has struggled with injuries at times the last two seasons, playing in just eight of the Suns’ final 40 games last year.

On the chance Team USA does get the best roster possible, it’s going to immediately have the argument for arguably the top team in Olympic history. Even if a number of players are on the backend of their careers, LeBron amongst them, they’ll still be as loaded and deep of a team as perhaps ever before.

There are certainly lots of ifs and uncertainties, but if things break the right way, this could be an all-time roster for the Olympics.