Golden State Warriors: Stephen Curry commits to 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games

Golden State Warriors franchise player Stephen Curry has officially vowed to participate in the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

In an interview with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols, and reported by Nick Friedell, Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry — AKA The Baby Faced Assassin — becomes one of the first superstars to throw his name in the hat for Team USA.

This comes a few days after Golden State Warriors teammate Draymond Green said that he hopes to play in Tokyo as well when he was on CNBC’s ‘Power Money.’

In the Nichols interview, Curry had the following to say.

"“Definitely wanna go. I’ve never been on the Olympic team. I’ve been on two World Cup championship gold-medal teams. But the Olympics is the experience that I want. And next year will hopefully be it.”"

This might seem like a no brainer to the outside world, the people who don’t follow basketball religiously like the person writing this article. But it’s kind of a big deal.

Because up until a few days ago, a lot of fans were wondering if USA’s dominance in international competition was becoming less of the guaranteed gold that they’d grown accustomed to over the past decade.

That’s because the United States lost.

Badly.

This summer was the FIBA World Championship. And if you don’t know what that is, that’s okay.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the Olympics, though. If you weren’t, we’d have to have a conversation.

But what you may not know is that the countries that go to the Olympics to play basketball don’t just show up when the flame is lit at the host country’s opening ceremony. You’ve got to qualify, my guy.

That’s where the World Championship comes into the picture. Imagine if the Olympics were just for basketball, and even more countries competed.

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Instead of just shiny medals, winning countries get bragging rights as the best of the best and qualification to play in the Olympic world games. That’s a very important part. Because Olympic gold is the goldest gold there is. And everyone wants at least a chance at a piece of it.

I will say that the United States did qualify for the 2020 Olympics when they won their first tournament game against Brazil.

But that’s about the only good thing to come out of this competition for America, who got stomped out of medal contention by Rudy Gobert and the French national team.

They then got beat by Serbia, and finally won against Poland in a game that secured their spot in— *checks notes*— 7th place!

So how did this happen?

It’s a slew of things, really. But they can all be boiled down to one or two main reasons: Increasingly better competition, and lack of star representation.

Let’s start with the international players. For one, they’re flat out getting better. The 1992 Dream Team lit a spark under the entire world. Now the fruits of every country’s labor are coming into fruition.

An entire generation of players inspired by our biggest and brightest stars now play in our league. Then they go home and represent their countries during international play. And they’re good.

To put it into context how good, the NBA MVP is Greek, the Defensive Player of the Year is French, and the Rookie of the Year is Slovenian.

The future is foreign. And because of that, we can’t just slap a team together in a few weeks as we’ve done in the past. But that’s what we did this summer.

It’s not entirely Jerry Colangelo, the head of Team USA’s fault, though. He tried to recruit bigger names. It just didn’t work out.

Which brings me to the second reason that we lost: Our best players didn’t show up. They disappeared as LeBron James did against Dallas in 2011. Yeah, I said it.

Our FIBA teams have never been the best they could be. But if the Olympic roster is a 99 out of 100, the FIBA squad has at the very least been a 90, which isn’t bad. You’ll get one or two top tier players and a slew of All-Star level complimentary players.

That’s always been enough. I’m not a teacher, but I think it’s safe to say that this 2019 team was a 75 at best. Especially when you imagine what they could have looked like if all the original commits didn’t drop out, as Scott Davis of Business Insider details.

"“In recent weeks, James Harden, Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal, CJ McCollum, Tobias Harris, Kevin Love, Eric Gordon, Paul Millsap, Andre Drummond, and Zion Williamson have dropped out of the tournament. According to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, DeMar DeRozan was added to the Team USA roster later but also dropped out.”"

See, there’s no LeBron James or Stephen Curry on that list, but that’s a winning team for sure. They didn’t show, though. You’d think players would jump at the opportunity to represent their country.

They have for the past 15 or so years. But we simply don’t value the FIBA games as much as we do the Olympics, even though the rest of the world does.

Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer explains perfectly why this particular summer is different than years past, and it might shed some light as to why the bigger names dropped out:

"“What’s different is the volume—this summer saw an unprecedented amount of superstar talent switching teams, via trade or free agency. But what gets lost in the noise is how those roster changes can affect what we see on the court.”"

This summer the entire landscape of the NBA changed literally overnight. There’s not a clear favorite for the title, and teams and players alike are salivating at the possibilities of winning a championship.

They’d rather take the time to rest up, build chemistry with their new teammates, and spend time with family before they make what they hope to be a deep postseason run.

Make no mistake, international medals are great and all, but that Larry O’Brien trophy is still the highest accomplishment these players strive to acquire.

When you mix in the fact that athletes are far more concerned with taking care of themselves during the offseason than they ever have been, and that the FIBA tournament started in September rather than it’s normal July start date, it begins to make a little bit more sense why these guys were MIA.

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Don’t slander the ones that showed up, though. While we may have lost, the players who chose to represent Team USA sacrificed their summers for this. None of this is their fault.

But that’s why Stephen Curry committing to Tokyo next year is a big deal. It shows that our stars are still interested in representing us. They dropped the ball this summer, but hopefully they can right the ship next year. Don’t forget that Stephen Curry is in the upper echelon of talent either.

This man singlehandedly changed the way the game is played and he will be respected. A player of his caliber making this choice is a light that will attract other players to join the team just for the chance to play with him, let alone win a gold medal.

“We’re still the best,” Curry said. “If we get the guys that are supposed to be there, in terms of, you know, representing us in the Olympic stage and the commitment’s been there, and I think it’ll be there next year.”

This is a really good sign for Team USA, and Stephen Curry alike. As he stated, he hasn’t won a gold medal on that stage yet, and it would be such a special addition to the hardware he’s already acquired. The 2020 Olympics should be a fun one.

Especially with the world’s competition getting better. Can you imagine a Stephen Curry half-court heave against a Greece team with four Antetokounmpo brothers leaping forward to block him? That sounds like a Michelangelo painting. You love to see it.

Prayers up to the basketball gods that he stays healthy.