Never has a Men’s USA Basketball Team member been the flag bearer for the United States at the Olympics, but that’s all about to change as arguably (it’s still MJ, to me) the greatest basketball player ever in LeBron James is being given the prestigious honor for this year in Paris. It must be an incredible feeling in and of itself, but the fact that he was voted to bear the flag by his fellow U.S. olympians shows just how respected of an athlete LeBron is amongst his peers. While he is the first men’s basketball team member to do it, on the women’s side the likes of Dawn Staley and Sue Bird received the honor back in 2004 and 2021, respectively.
Team USA has leaned on LeBron thus far in a few of their preliminary matches to deliver the goods and make winning plays down the stretch against South Sudan and Germany, and they’ll likely need him to be the LeBron we all know him to be as the rest of the world continues to make strides to compete with the U.S. in a sport it has historically dominated.
Leading the way for Team USA. 🇺🇸
Two-time Olympic gold medalist @KingJames has been selected as our men's flag bearer for the #ParisOlympics Opening Ceremony. pic.twitter.com/NN4NLWwwfc
— Team USA (@TeamUSA) July 22, 2024
