LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant won’t lead Team USA forever, and one Naismith Hall of Fame coach says there are a batch of young phenoms who will eventually help take over.
Former Syracuse head coach and Team USA assistant Jim Boeheim says the future will be bright for the U.S. even after that trio of 30-somethings exits the international stage. Led by Curry’s 24 points on 8-of-12 shooting from beyond the arc, the Americans won their fifth straight gold medal, 98-87, over France on Saturday in Paris.
“I’m not worried about our game,” Boeheim said on SiriusXM NBA Radio with Sam Vincent and Vince Goodwill ahead of the gold-medal game. “I think we’re still going to be there. A guy like Cooper Flagg coming, some of these young players coming out the next couple years are really good.
“We haven’t had these guys, the kid AJ Dybantsa there, the big Boozer kid [Cam Boozer], Carlos’s son, there are some really good players coming along.”
The 6-foot-9 Flagg, a Maine native who is a freshman at Duke, is widely projected to be the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft next summer, just ahead of Rutgers freshmen Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper.
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Flagg, the Naismith and Gatorade Player of the Year, would be the fourth No. 1 pick coached by New Jersey native and Montverde (FL) Academy coach Kevin Boyle, following Kyrie Irving, Ben Simmons and Cade Cunningham.
Flagg, 17, was the youngest player in Las Vegas this summer with the USA Select Team when it faced James, Curry and Durant, and continued to impress the older American stars.
“Cooper Flagg was unbelievable,” Jim Boylen, assistant coach for both the select team and the Indiana Pacers, said per The Athletic. “He’s not scared.”
“He wants it, you see how bad he wants it,” added Devin Booker of the U.S. national team.
With the next World Cup in Qatar in 2027 followed by the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028, Flagg will have had several years of NBA experience to prepare for those events.
“That’s something I’m striving for, just trying to be the best I can and, if I can achieve that and then join the World Cup team in two years, I mean, that’s another goal on my list,” Flagg told The Athletic. “I’m just working and trying to get better every day.”
Meantime, the 6-9 Dybantsa of Utah Prep and the 6-8 Boozer of Miami (FL) Christopher Columbus are the projected top two picks in 2026, followed by five-star guard Darryn Peterson.
Dybantsa, who is being recruited by Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, BYU, Kansas, Kansas State and North Carolina, has already trained with James and Durant and competed against Jayson Tatum at Tatum’s camp. The Brockton, Mass. native had a one-on-one workout last summer with LeBron soon after Bronny James suffered cardiac arrest.
“He’s a man of his word,” Dybantsa said then of LeBron. “He said he was going to work out. Didn’t know what was going to happen to his son, but even though it took him an extra day, he still showed up and worked out.”
As for what LeBron showed him, he said: “He was just giving me tips on moves, like get lower, get a better base so I don’t get knocked off balance. Stuff like that.”
Boozer is a skilled and strong power forward who is being courted by Miami, Duke, UNC, Michigan, Florida and Arkansas and projects as a top-2 pick in 2026.
By 2028, these players and others could join the younger Team USA players like Tatum, Anthony Edwards, Bam Adebayo and Tyrese Haliburton to make a run at a sixth straight gold medal.
Still, Boeheim cautions that further down the road he sees African countries like South Sudan — which pushed the U.S. before losing by one point in an exhibition and then lost convincingly during pool play — emerging on the Olympic stage.
“It will probably take longer than 10 years, but in 20 years African players will dominate international basketball,” Boeheim said. “They’re untouched, they’re just getting a little bit of balls and courts over there, not much but they’re getting it.
“But there’s an unbelievable untapped talent going to come out of Africa in the future.”
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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.
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Publish date : 2024-08-11 03:36:00
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