NBA insider doesn’t rule out Kevin Durant playing in 2028 Olympics

NBA insider doesn’t rule out Kevin Durant playing in 2028 Olympics

Kevin Durant may have solidified his case as the greatest United States Olympic men’s basketball player ever with helping lead USA basketball to their fifth straight Gold last weekend.

He’s the only walking men’s player with four gold medals and is the country’s all-time leading scorer in Olympic competitions. He’s at–or near–the top in every counting stat while holding the three-best scoring marks in Olympic competitions in USA men’s history.

He also may not be done competing.

According to ESPN NBA insider Brian Windhorst, should Durant want to play in 2028–which he hasn’t ruled out (yet)–USA would give him a provisional “yes.”

“I would not rule out [Kevin Durant] playing,” Windhorst said on The Hoop Collective podcast Monday. “I talked with Team USA officials, and they would give him a provisional yes right now.”

Durant will be 39-years-old, going on 40, when the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles roll around. LeBron James is the exception to the rule in terms of peak performance at that age–you can’t expect Durant to do the same, even though he’s in the 99th percentile of basketball players to ever grace planet earth.

He came off the bench for all but one game in this year’s tourney while nursing a previous calf injury, averaging 13.8 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists on 54.0/51.9/93.8 shooting splits. Durant is a walking bucket, so assuming he plays in 2028, he could–at a minimum–provide that.

Slim Reaper is a player who loves to hoop, barring none. We don’t know whether or not he will continue playing by the time he’s pushing 40. There’s a lot that can happen in one year, let alone four. But when it comes to playing basketball on the world’s biggest stage, it’s hard to rule any outcome out for Durant, who’s played in every single Olympic game since 2012.

“The journey is cool to me, just knowing that I’ve got all these memories in my head that I can lean back on at any time,” Durant told Mathew Silver of usab.com last week. “I try to stay in the present as much as I can and just try to enjoy the moment.

“Keep your body in shape, keep your mind in the right place. You never know.”

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