Sports
USA Basketball announces men’s team lineup for the Paris Olympics

USA Basketball studied every men’s basketball game it played in for about twenty years, and a transparent trend eventually emerged. When the defense is not adequate, the Americans are likely to get into trouble.
With this in mind, the team for the Paris Olympics was created.
LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker, Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum, Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday, Tyrese Haliburton, Anthony Edwards and Kawhi Leonard were officially announced as members of the U.S. Olympic team on Wednesday – a bunch with nearly 200,000 NBA points, 84 All-Star appearances and 10 Olympic gold medals.
“You obviously need talent, but you want players who can fit in, fit in and can play the specific roles that you need,” USA Basketball managing director Grant Hill said Wednesday. “But I think defense was definitely a priority and having players who could lock down and defend a lot of sets in possession.”
The pondering is easy: Scoring should not be an issue, and if the defense does its job, the Americans – trying to win a fifth straight Olympic gold medal – can be hard to beat.
The group includes seven players with gold medals; Durant has three, James has two, and Adebayo, Booker, Holiday, Tatum and Booker each have one. A complete of 12 players averaged 24.2 points, 7.0 rebounds and 5.6 assists during the season, and was 39% effective from three-point range.
“Of course, it is a great honor to represent your country,” Adebayo said. “But for me to be in this room as part of these 12 players who they say are the best 12 players to represent the United States, it’s a whole other level.”
The amount of talent on the American roster is astounding. Of the 12 chosen, seven finished the season ranked amongst the NBA’s top 15 per-game scorers. James is the league’s all-time scoring leader, Curry is the all-time three-pointer leader, Haliburton won the league title in assists per game this season, and 10 of them were All-Stars this season as well.
“The goal is to win gold,” Hill said. “They know it.”
Featured Stories
The timing of Wednesday’s announcement coincided with the U.S. Olympic Summit in New York and as Americans celebrated the start of the 100-day countdown to the opening ceremony in Paris. USA Basketball could have waited longer to make the announcement, but it surely didn’t see the point.
“There will be a lot of interest and a lot of people who will want to join us on this incredible journey that we will soon be on,” Hill said. “So if we know, why wait?”
The Americans remain No. 1 in the FIBA rankings in the world even after failing to medal in the last two World Cups – ending seventh in China in 2019 and fourth in Manila last summer.
They won gold at the Tokyo Olympics defeating France 87-82. Plenty of other countries can be vying for gold in Paris – host France amongst them, reigning world champions Germany, Serbia and Canada – but the U.S. squad is stacked with NBA stars that no other country can match.
“You hope they’ve never played together before,” Canadian Kelly Olynyk said when told about the U.S. lineup this weekend, “except for the last 12 All-Star games.”
Hill led the task of assembling the squad, which took about 18 months, and the whole plan was to finish the team well before training camp began in Las Vegas in early July. Players received the jerseys during visits by Hill or other USA Basketball officials in recent days, and in some cases received them during practices with their team.
“The common theme when we lost was not defending well enough,” U.S. coach Steve Kerr said. “It doesn’t sound like anything earth-shattering. We feel we will score points. We’ll have plenty of talent and we’ll find a way to score. But the international game is more physical and we have addressed that.”
Durant has been saying since last yr that he planned to play, which suggests he’ll aim to turn out to be the first male Olympic athlete in history to win 4 basketball gold medals. He and Carmelo Anthony are the only male athletes with three Olympic gold medals; there are six women, all Americans, who’ve at the least 4 Olympic gold medals in basketball. Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi each scored five, while Teresa Edwards, Tamika Catchings, Sylvia Fowles and Lisa Leslie each scored 4.

James can be in search of his fourth medal after winning bronze in 2004 and gold in 2008 and 2012. His other gold medalists include Davis (2012), Adebayo (2020), Booker (2020), Tatum (2020) and Holiday ( 2020). The 2020 gold medals were won in 2021 as the Covid-19 pandemic forced a year-long delay of the Tokyo Games.
Curry will play in the Olympics for the first time, as did Leonard and Embiid, who decided to play for the United States last yr after becoming American residents. The Cameroon-born center could also represent France at the Paris Games.
The other latest Olympians on the current squad are Haliburton and Edwards, each of whom played for the U.S. team that finished fourth at the World Cup in Manila last yr.
“I definitely wanted that experience,” Curry said. “I think the time is right.”
Over 40 players were considered for the team. Creating a squad of 12 players was difficult.
“I think everyone understands that these Olympics are going to be perhaps the most anticipated, given that it’s Paris, in terms of athletes wanting to go, players’ wives wanting to go, and everyone wanting to go,” Kerr said. “It definitely caused some really difficult decisions for us.”
Durant and Curry said in October that they desired to play this summer, Adebayo said then that he had already committed to the team and the assumption for a while was that if players like James desired to play, all that they had to do was say So.
American men have competed in basketball at the Olympic Games 19 times, winning 19 medals – 16 gold, one silver and two bronze.
Kerr can be the coach of the Parisian team, accompanied by Erik Spoelstra, Tyronn Lue and Mark Few. It’s still possible the roster could change before the summer if injuries or deep runs in the NBA playoffs force players to alter their minds about committing to the national team.
“We have a contingency plan,” Hill said, “and we have it at every position.”
Sports
The NFL Shedeur Sanders slide was not caused by racism

Let’s get something straight concerning the nightmare experience of the playmaker Shedeur Sanders in NFL Draft: It had nothing to do with racism.
While many draft observers watched the perceived Sanders slide As stunning development within the three -day NFL process, employees who actually select players and place them in the sector assessed the situation much otherwise. Of course, many aspects contributed to the rocky entrance of Sanders to the league with Cleveland Browns – but his skin color was not amongst them.
The fact is that no NFL teams assessed Sanders as a possible difference in an important position in sport.
We know this because in NFL the whole lot turns across the playmaker. That is why the owners often approve daring movements within the project to amass potential franchise passers -by, and general directors are able to risk their profession, advising them to do it. If Sanders were on any “compulsory” letters, he could be elected within the opening round. It’s so easy.
For NFL Film Game Sanders decision makers, he told a story that was not good for the previous distinguished in Colorado and son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Sanders. Quincy Avery guru criticized it similarly.
Avery, a private coach of the playmaker of a few of the perfect NFL, Avery played a key role in the event of Jalen Hurts from Philadelphia Eagles, CJ Stroud from Houston Texans and Jordan Love of the Green Bay Packers.
In addition, Avery is a longtime teacher of Browns Deshaun Watson, who’s to be late for a big time next season, and potentially throughout the season, after re -assembly of Achilles’ right tendon. The owner of Browns, Jimmy Haslam, described Watson’s acquisition as “a great swing and miss”, and the team is to go from three -time pro Bowler.
The project developed as Avery, who was critical of Sanders’s performance, before Browns selected him, he imagined that it might be so.
“The tape did not lead me to believe in something other than (Sanders should be a choice of late round),” Avery said on Monday in a telephone interview with AndScape. “As at best, it is copying a backup.”

Andrew Wevers/Getty Images
The inspirational history of Avery’s life is the topic of the Hulu document, (Full disclosure, I’m considered one of the producer producers of the film). For Avery, the position of black playmakers within the NFL is personal and is saddened that many fans have expressed disenchanted views on something that is definitely not rooted.
“Black people said these things … It’s so frustrating,” she regretted Avery. “Because when there are situations that really affect the breed, (white) people will not value it in the same way. They will say:” They do the whole lot with a race. ” We just haven’t got to do that.
“And many people, most people who do this, make these claims without sight. They do not understand how NFL actually assesses the position and what is important. They have no eye to understand that it is not good enough to be in the position for us to enter it. So this is frustrating.”
By opposing the unsupported narrative of racism, Avery pointed to the height of the sketch. Tennessee Titans selected the previous CAM WARD for the primary time in Miami. What’s more, during each of the last three NFL projects of black quarterbacks, the primary in the final classification was chosen and 7 were chosen within the opening round.
The black playmaker won the last three Most worthy awards for Super Bowl players, two of the last three MVP Lige Associated Press and the last two AP offensive awards. At NFL, that is the era of a black playmaker. Crying racism, because one player was not appointed where the so -called draft experts thought he could be chosen, he’s funny, says Avery.
“Black playmakers gain more opportunities than ever before,” said Avery. “We ask young men to give you the option to be authentically themselves, that are black, which is a culture that’s all of the things that he covers and have opportunities.
“And now we see how things move in this direction in the right direction. To complain, because someone who is not really talented enough, there is no way someone who is more talented than him … is wild and funny.”

Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire
After Sanders became unresolved in the primary round, many fans began to social media to explode NFL to plot against him. They expressed that the player which was so statistically productive In Colorado it might fall to the fifth round. They argued that NFL punished Sanders because he was an open black man with a big ego.
During the escape to the NFL draft from 2011, many analysts characterised the playmaker Cam Newton as a script, selfish and having a big ego. Despite this, Carolina Panthers selected Newton with no 1. Why? Because his talent jumped off the screen.
Last season, Caleb Williams faced control because he painted his nails in college and was shot crying on the pitch. Chicago Bears selected Williams with the primary selection within the 2024 project.
Avery said no movement was surprising.
“In the case of a draft, he really comes down to whether the juice is worth squeezing these bands,” said Avery. “And if this is not the case, they will not worry about it.”
For NFL, Sanders was not price a high round. It’s only a fact. However, by attributing his situation to racism, Sanders, in addition to the achievements of black stars playing in today’s game.
Sports
Falcons say that Ulbrich’s defense coordinator was responsible for calling for a joke to Shedeur Sanders

Atlanta Falcons said on Sunday that Jeff Ulbrich’s defensive coordinator was responsible for a joke with NFL Draft Cick Shedeur Sanders.
Falcons has published a statement that 21-year-old Jax Ulbrich “unintentional came across a contact telephone design for Shedeur Sanders from an open iPad during a visit to his parent’s house and wrote the number to later conduct a joke.”
Although Jax Ulbrich delivered a number, he sat next to an unidentified friend who actually called Sanders.
Falcons said that Jeff Ulbrich was not aware of the exposure to data or jokes up to the actual fact. In their statement, they presented “sincere apology of Shedeur Sanders and his family”, and Jax Ulbrich also published a public apology in social media.
Sanders, an impressive playmaker from Colorado, is the son of coach Buffaloes and Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, who began his NFL profession in Falcons.
Shedeur Sanders perhaps The biggest history of the draft When he had to wait until the fifth round on Saturday before he was appointed by Cleveland Browns. He received a joke on Friday evening, on the second day of the project, waiting.
In the conversation, Jax’s friend Ulbrich identified himself as the final director of New Orleans Mickey Loomis and told Sanders that he was made by the saints before he finished the conversation.
“It didn’t really affect me, because it was just ok. I don’t feed negativeness or I don’t feed myself,” Sanders said on Saturday after his calling. “… that’s what it is. Of course it is childish, of course I feel that it was a childish act, but everyone does children’s things here and there.”
Jax Ulbrich apologized to Sanders on Sunday for what he called “a huge mistake.”
“Shedeur, what I did was completely unforgivable, embarrassing and shameful,” he wrote in social media. “I’m so sorry that I took your moment, it was selfish and childish. I never imagine preparing to celebrate one of the greatest moments of your life and made a terrible mistake and made this moment. Thank you for taking my phone before, I hope you find in your heart to forgive me.”
Falcons also apologized to Sanders and his family, saying that “they do not accept this behavior.”
“We thoroughly review all protocols and update if necessary to prevent such an incident from re -occurring,” said Falcons.
Falcons said they’d contact with the NFL “and will continue to cooperate with all questions that we can receive from the NFL league office.”
Jeff Ulbrich celebrated Falcons’ Defense pressure In the NFL project. Falcons selected two edges, Jalon Walker from Georgia and James Pearce Jr. from Tennessee in the primary round. Their first 4 sorts of draft are defensive players.
Ulbrich was 3-9 as a temporary New York Jets coach last season, before he was employed to return to Atlanta, where he previously worked as an assistant.
___
Noah Trister in Washington, AP sports author, contributed to this report.

(tagstotranslatter) Shedeur Sanders (T) NFL and racism
Sports
NFL Sanders Sanders Sanders: Media Buzz, conspiracy theories and waiting for his name to be named

Draft NFL is an undoubted science, yearly perspectives slide down due to gossip, rating, interviews and team matching, sometimes a mixture of all the above. The topic of the conversation in 2025 NFL Draft turned across the playmaker in Colorado Sanders as evaluators of the chair and talking sports heads who are attempting to discover why he has slipped thus far.
As according to the incontrovertible fact that Sanders was not taken in the primary round It wasn’t a surprise For 10 coaches and high -ranking NFL managers they survey, which is a mirrored image that, according to their rankings, Colorado’s perspective just isn’t a talent of the primary round.
According to their reporting, the front offices across the league are privately questioned by Sanders to rise into a frontrunner, but these fears are secondary to his mediocre tape, corresponding to the team’s evaluators spoke consistently within the project process that Sanders just isn’t perceived because the elite perspective of the playmaker, even during a yr with the sign of the player.
This, together with the playmaker, that’s, truthfully depressed, in actual fact there are only three teams for the signaling caller, signifies that potential teams aren’t any longer sold, it’s value a media circus that may accompany his alternative, is not going to be chosen in early rounds.
However, this didn’t stop people from saying that the league is trying to “curse” Sanders because he’s confident or argues that NFL is involved in a certain collusion with Sanders; These people include former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III, Stephen A. Smith and former US representative Jamal Bowman for each with an online connection.
However, others say Sanders has hurt his own inventory project together with the approach to the trial before the draft. He refused to participate within the Sanctuary and NFL Combine, and after a yr with the poor class of the playmaker, the sport tape he relied on to present his value, didn’t impress the teams.
Another factor is a major remark about Deion Sanders and his public comments about where his sons can play, in addition to the player Travis Hunter. With all this in mind, some summary teams may be careful about additional control, which may bring the alternative of Shedeur Sanders. Meanwhile, Sanders stays patient when he’s waiting for his name.
On the project at Canton, Texas, Sanders expressed the knowledge that he would be elected on the second day of the project, but this didn’t materialize, and joins the long list of perspectives that they’d to wait to hear their name, including the playmaker playmaker San Francisco 49ers.
“Of course, we didn’t expect it, but it seems to me that everything is possible with God, everything is possible,” said Shedeur in a movie recorded on his team on April 24. “Tomorrow’s day. We will be happy regardless of this. Legendary.”
Nick Saban, legendary former football coach College, who became an ESPN analyst, provided the crucial context in his transmission project Around the sublime expectations for Sanders, which were created by the media, including a few of his own network.
“You know, I hate this … We mustn’t take any player and wait for him. It’s not about where you might be going; it’s about if you will be chosen, will you are taking the chance to offer you the perfect possibilities, what do you’ve gotten? I feel that Shedeur Sanders will do it. Saban.
(Tagstranslat) pick
-
Press Release1 year ago
U.S.-Africa Chamber of Commerce Appoints Robert Alexander of 360WiseMedia as Board Director
-
Press Release1 year ago
CEO of 360WiSE Launches Mentorship Program in Overtown Miami FL
-
Business and Finance11 months ago
The Importance of Owning Your Distribution Media Platform
-
Business and Finance1 year ago
360Wise Media and McDonald’s NY Tri-State Owner Operators Celebrate Success of “Faces of Black History” Campaign with Over 2 Million Event Visits
-
Ben Crump1 year ago
Another lawsuit accuses Google of bias against Black minority employees
-
Theater1 year ago
Telling the story of the Apollo Theater
-
Ben Crump1 year ago
Henrietta Lacks’ family members reach an agreement after her cells undergo advanced medical tests
-
Ben Crump1 year ago
The families of George Floyd and Daunte Wright hold an emotional press conference in Minneapolis
-
Theater1 year ago
Applications open for the 2020-2021 Soul Producing National Black Theater residency – Black Theater Matters
-
Theater11 months ago
Cultural icon Apollo Theater sets new goals on the occasion of its 85th anniversary