To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2012 gold-medal game, Durant’s media outlet Boardroom posted a video of Team USA holding their gold medals on Friday. The caption also noted KD’s 30-point effort.
Durant responded to the clip with a bold statement. “Outta respect for the sport I won’t say this was the best team ever but shit, this was the best… nevermind,” he wrote in a since-deleted tweet.
Given that there wasn’t much of a hot take in the tweet, it’s unclear why Durant removed it. Of course, KD would be opposed by the majority of basketball fans who are old enough to remember the Dream Team, and for good reason. The 1992 Olympic men’s basketball squad, widely regarded as the finest basketball team ever put together, had 11 future Hall of Famers: Jordan, Magic, Bird, Barkley, Malone, Pippen, Robinson, Stockton, Ewing, and Mullin.
However, the talent disparity between KD’s 2012 team and the Dream Team is less significant than most basketball fans would acknowledge. LeBron, Kobe, Durant, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook were among the five NBA MVPs on the 2012 squad, along with several players who consistently rank among the league’s top players (Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Anthony Davis, Kevin Love).
The USA Men's Basketball team won the gold medal in the 2012 Olympics 10 years ago today.
Kevin Durant tweeted and immediately deleted his take on that 2012 Olympic team 👀 pic.twitter.com/o4XuMNQrcc
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) August 12, 2022