All indicators level to Kevin Durant taking part in in Workforce USA’s 2024 Paris Olympics opener towards Serbia on Sunday. The veteran Suns ahead’s standing for the opener was in doubt after he missed all 5 of Workforce USA’s exhibition contests within the lead-up to the Video games with a calf pressure.
Nevertheless, Durant was a full participant in a scrimmage on Thursday and deliberate to follow on Saturday, revealed Workforce USA head coach Steve Kerr.
“We’ll see how issues go in follow [on Saturday],” Kerr instructed reporters on Friday, via USA Today. “To date so good. He got here via the scrimmage two days in the past fairly properly. …Having coached him earlier than, he is one of many few guys I have been round who can step again out on the courtroom and appear like Kevin Durant, a participant of his caliber. Most gamers it might take a while to get your rhythm again, and it’ll, too, for him to a sure extent. However he is fairly particular.”
Durant is “fairly particular” certainly. The sharpshooting star is making an attempt to grow to be the primary males’s basketball participant in historical past to win 4 gold medals (Carmelo Anthony is tied with three), and the primary male athlete to win four gold medals in any team sport on the Olympics.
The 2-time NBA champion is already the main scorer in Workforce USA historical past, with 435 complete factors from his three earlier Olympic campaigns in 2012, 2016 and 2020. In Paris, Durant will get an opportunity so as to add to his document tally, and probably problem Lisa Leslie’s document (489) for many Olympic factors throughout each women and men in Workforce USA historical past.
As such, lots is at stake for Durant, who can additional enrich his legacy on the Paris Video games.
If Durant does swimsuit up towards Serbia, he’ll probably come off the bench, particularly with Workforce USA discovering stability in a beginning 5 of Stephen Curry, Devin Booker, Jrue Vacation, LeBron James and Joel Embiid. Kerr stated he has “but to decide” on Durant’s function upon return from harm.
