Maybe it’s just us; of course, we have commented on this before, that the 1992 United States men’s Olympic basketball team kind of brought about the beginning of the end for the Golden Age of Sports. We honestly haven’t watched the Summer Games since 2008 in Beijing, when we did so only because we still knew, personally, some of the athletes competing. Since then, it’s just gone way beyond our interest or concern(s).

Most of the players for the U.S. are millionaires many times over, if not billionaires, and it’s hard to care about them beating up on the little guys from countries like South Sudan. As much as we respect LeBron James, this is his fourth time on the Olympic roster—albeit the first time since 2012. He won a bronze in 2004, when the lazy Americans got complacent and embarrassed us all, but he won gold in 2008 and 2012.

Did he really need to come back now and do this again at age 39? No. We can understand Stephen Curry, at age 36, playing on his first Olympic team, however. It’s one of the only things he does not have in his illustrious career: an Olympic gold medal. In 2012, he wasn’t yet the Curry we know now; in 2016, he was in the starting stages of a dynasty he dared not fuck with; in 2020/2021, he was coming off an injury. Fine.

What about the other 30-something players in these Olympics?

  • Kevin Durant (age 35): pursuing his fourth straight Olympic gold medal (2012, 2016, 2020/2021)
  • Jrue Holiday (34): pursuing his second consecutive Olympic gold (2020/2021)
  • Anthony Davis (31): pursuing his second Olympic gold (2012)
  • Derrick White (30): pursuing his first Olympic gold
  • Joel Embiid (30): pursuing his first Olympic gold

Embiid and White, we can understand their motivations; Davis, Durant, and Holiday have NBA title rings already, so why are they doing this? Perhaps it’s ego, or maybe it’s the personality type necessary to even being a professional athlete. We cannot say, for sure, but we’re really not interested in watching James, Durant, Holiday, and Davis in these Olympics. We surely would root for Curry and Embiid, however.

Of course, other nations have NBA All Stars on their international rosters, too, and we can understand those players and their respective patriotism wanting to win a gold for their countries by beating the big, bad Americans on the basketball court. Yet, we’re still not interested enough to watch any of this, simply because the NBA regular season itself is so long and the postseason so endless. Isn’t 9 months enough?!

Yes. And sure, the Olympics only happen every four years or so, but we’re just old fashioned: we’d rather see the college kids take their one crack at a gold like it’s 1984 or something. We can never go back, and even the college “kids” these days are entitled babies. Thus, we won’t be watching the Olympics, yet again, simply because we tire of seeing professionals just doing more of what they already get paid too much to do. Yawn.