Sunday afternoon in the basketball final and seconds after he fires the first of his high-arced flawless three-point baskets, Kevin Durant allows himself a yell of approval that carries through the noisy auditorium. Of all the players on the USA team, Durant carried a degree of personal tumult with him to South America.
He drew the blinds and hid from the world when he finally decided to leave Oklahoma Thunder to join the Golden State Warriors. It seemed like a tacit admission that for all his beseeching, inimitable talent – a 6’ 9” all-rounder with the gait of a middle-distance runner, a natural ball-carrier, an unstoppable streak-shooter and a traditional big man – he may not quite possess whatever it takes to lead a team to an NBA title.
At Golden State, Durant will form, with Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, a scoring triumvirate of frightening potential but he will no longer have the pressure of being “the man”.
Perhaps that’s why he uses this gold medal-game to make a nonsense of that argument.
Extreme depths
If it’s true that Olympic basketball has become a stage for the NBA to showcase the extreme depths of its athleticism, then it’s also true that it reminds us the world that basketball doesn’t belong to just America either.
What an occasion at 3.40 on Sunday when the Serbs stood for their anthem, with their small enclave of fans pouring their hearts into the mournful dirge while at the other end of the floor, the stars from the epicentre of sports/marketing hype and glamour – Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks, Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers etc – stood obediently to attention.
Serbian basketball has its own mortal gods: the rangy Nicola Jokic, the sparky guard Bogdan Bogdanovic and they had lost to the USA by a mere three points in the preliminary rounds. That was then.
Durant’s first three presaged a dreamy first-half performance: a pair of feathery back-to-back threes followed, a steal and breakaway dunk, a blow-by move which left the smaller, ostensibly faster Bogdanovic rooted in cement and then another three-ball after an ostentatious display of perimeter passing from the Americans. It is 52-29 at the break and Durant has 24 points.
In the warm-up, the Serbs had been a treat to watch for the purity of their shooting: they are pure technicians. But with DeAndre Jordan and Paul George, both 7’0’ moving freight trains menacing the Serbian sharp-shooters, the technique became rushed and the misses piled up and the gulf in ability became apparent.
The cultural differences evident in the style of play – the American game jazz-inflected and just punishingly mean in the competitive and pure speed of the NBA players, the Serbian game more orthodox and rehearsed but still exceptionally good. And, of course, the Serbs were an entirely white team while the USA is comprised entirely of African-Americans.
Durant cooled down after his supernova turn in the first half but, by then, the occasion had been transformed into an exhibition of USA strength.
Lucrative contract
The USA players reserved a special reception for Anthony, who collected his third Olympic gold here. Locked into lucrative contract with the ever-frustrating Knicks, they are likely to be only titles of note Anthony wins in a brilliant individual career.
Durant, joshing with his new team-mates Thompson and Green on the bench, leaves with a chance to escape that fate. Next winter’s anticipated showdown between the Warriors and Cavaliers promises the most heated rivalry since the Bulls-Pistons anger-fest of two generations ago. But they were all friends here.
It finished 96-66 and the superstars draped themselves in stars and stripes.
