LAS VEGAS — Stephen Curry drove to the basket, laid the ball in, acquired fouled and ended up on the ground after drawing the contact.
He observed he was close to the on-court photographers.
So, he determined to go viral.
Curry posed for a couple of seconds — one hand on his hip, the opposite on the aspect of his head, whereas giving these cameras a wide-eyed look — earlier than attending to his toes.
The showman placed on a present in his debut with the U.S. Olympic basketball crew, scoring 12 factors in 19 minutes and serving to the People beat Canada 86-72 of their exhibition opener on Wednesday evening.
“Simply having enjoyable,” Curry stated. “Bought to the basket and I slid throughout. I used to be making an attempt to get again up, however I acquired caught so I simply wished to pose and provides myself a second. You realize I wish to have enjoyable and revel in myself and it didn’t take lengthy for me to seek out a chance tonight.”
There was so much to love — and in equity, a lot to not like — for the People of their first tune-up for the Paris Olympics.
First, they received. All 10 accessible gamers contributed; all of them acquired between 17 and 21 minutes aside from Joel Embiid, who was restricted to 12 solely due to foul hassle.
There have been highlights — social media went wild for the Curry pose and a LeBron James chase-down block that led to a 3-pointer for Devin Booker — and there have been loads of errors that may be rapidly cleaned up.
“We wanted to set a tone for the way we need to play,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr stated. “And I feel we did that.”
And now, the true work begins.
The crew flies to Abu Dhabi — the following cease on the pre-Olympic tour — on Thursday for a couple of days of practices and two extra exhibitions. Kawhi Leonard received’t be on the flight; the People determined it wasn’t in his finest curiosity to attempt to play this summer time, so that they changed him with Derrick White, who’ll be on the way in which in a couple of days.
All that went down Tuesday evening, as USA Basketball was additionally celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with a gala — and President Barack Obama was one of many audio system, telling the crew about what it means to characterize the nation on the Olympic stage.
“It’s at all times a deal with if you get to speak to one of many biggest individuals this world has ever seen, for my part,” James stated. “His imaginative and prescient, his mindset, his phrases are at all times resonating, in additional methods than one. To have the ability to sit down with a former president, a buddy of mine that I actually name an expensive buddy, it’s fairly superior.”
Obama was there Wednesday evening, considered one of greater than 20,000 individuals on the enviornment in Las Vegas to look at a glorified scrimmage. It was the largest crowd for a recreation within the enviornment’s historical past, USA Basketball stated.
There have been “U-S-A! U-S-A!” chants, there have been previous gold medalists within the crowd, gold-medal-winning coaches like Mike Krzyzewski sitting courtside.
Like Kerr stated, the evening set a tone.
And now the People depart the U.S. for a month, searching for a fifth consecutive gold.
“That is at all times a enjoyable format if you get this assortment of fellows collectively,” Curry stated. “It’s a check and a problem to attempt to work out the chemistry, simply the move and the rhythm.”
Up to now, so good.
