USA’s basketball dominance at Olympics will be tested LA 2028, says Ray Allen

The last time the American men’s basketball team failed to win gold at the Olympics was at Athens, nearly two decades ago. But given recent trends in the NBA, two-time champion Ray Allen believes that the American dominance is going to be severely tested over the upcoming editions.
“I guarantee you that 2028, it’s going to be stiffer for the Americans to say that we’re the best country in the world at basketball. If you look at the leagues in Europe, there are a lot of kids coming up that are going to be way better than American players. Which is a great thing for the sport,” Allen, who was in India to conduct basketball clinics at the NBA Academy India, told journals in Mumbai.
France has emerged as a thorn in USA’s side ever since they handed the traditional giants a loss in the FIBA World Cup quarterfinals in 2019. Two years later, at the Tokyo Olympics, France again stunned the USA in the early stages. However, the Americans managed a victory in the gold medal game to maintain their dominance.
The 47-year-old Allen, who was part of the gold medal-winning American team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, pointed at the stars in the NBA who were in contention for the regular season MVP (Most Valuable Player) title this season to emphasise his point. Cameroon’s Joel Embiid pipped Serbia’s Nikola Jokic and Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo to the honour. The three players were also the finals for the regular season MVP title last time around. Canada’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lithuanian Domantas Sabonis and Slovenia’s Luka Doncic were also in the running this season.
There has been a rise in the number of international players in the American league. At the start of the ongoing season, the NBA announced that 120 international players from 40 countries were on opening-night rosters of the 30 teams. This included nine Frenchmen and six Germans besides five players each from Nigeria, Serbia and Spain.
“Look at the top 10 best players in the league. Around 75 percent are not born in the USA. That speaks volumes of how international the game has become. It also tells kids in America that you have got to work on your skills because players around the world are starting to play good basketball. That is reflected in world competitions like the Olympics,” added the Hall of Famer.
Tall ball making a comeback?
The fact that Embiid and Jokic (both of whom are led as seven-feet-tall) as well as the 6’ 11” Giannis have dominated the last two seasons points to the fact that the NBA is returning to being a big man’s league, reasoned Allen. (Besides these three stars, there is a high possibility that in the upcoming NBA draft, Frenchman Victor Wembanyama, who is 7’5” with shoes on, could be the top draft pick.)
Over the last decade, many teams have gravitated towards “small ball” — a strategy of swapping size on the floor for mobile and skillful players who can use space and let the ball fly with accuracy. It reached a point where more and more teams found themselves captivated the three-point revolution, and lanky centres becoming obsolete in the league.
“There are a lot of proficient three-point shooters in the league. There are guys shooting threes because the analytics tells them they should, when maybe they shouldn’t be shooting threes. Look at teams like Miami Heat, Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers… if you look at how they’re built, there’s no big (player). They play small line-ups. But it’ll be interesting to see how the Philadelphia 76ers do this year. If they get past the Boston Celtics (the two teams are currently 3-3 in the Eastern Conference), Philly will be the favourites to win the league.
“Denver, with Jokic in the team, and Philadelphia 76ers with Embiid, are similar in that sense. If Denver or Philadelphia win the title, the rest of the league is going to have to adjust to how they play. If either of the two teams wins, the rest of the teams in their conferences will have to have a big man who will have to contend with those guys. You cannot just play small ball cause those two teams have set a trend that suggests the big guy is back! And that big guy shoots threes. So teams will need a big guy that can guard Embiid. A team like Golden State will have to add a big man who can be mobile and guard Jokic in the Western Conference,” he added before predicting: “The game is going to revert (to being a big man’s league).”