How the Olympic men’s quarter-finals became the best day in basketball

Major League Baseball games in London, Japan, South Korea and Cuba. The NFL International Series, next month at a South American all-seater near you. Game 39. Professional sports organizations around the world have been falling over themselves in recent years in their efforts to enter new markets and expand their spheres of influence. But all of these fumbling attempts to appease growth-obsessed stakeholders have failed to even come close to the simple genius of NBA commissioner David Stern, who set the gold standard for globalization more than three decades ago when he created the Dream Team for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

The American team of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley, perhaps the greatest collection of sports talent ever assembled, was more than just a great team. It was a soulful infomercial for a sport and a culture. Sports Illustrated writer Jack McCallum likened it to “Johnny Cash in Folsom Prison, the Allman Brothers in the Fillmore East, Santana in Woodstock.” The Americans’ eight-game, 44-point victory over the team was a seminal moment that suddenly made kids around the world want to be like Mike. It was the closest thing to a Big Bang any sport has ever seen.

Fast-forward to Tuesday, when the business end of the Olympic men’s basketball tournament got underway in southeastern Paris. Thirty-two years after Barcelona, ​​basketball has taken its place alongside hip-hop and jazz as America’s richest cultural exports. With all the kids long grown up and the international talent pool bigger than ever, the last eight of the Olympic knockout stages has become the best day basketball has to offer: a four-day, win-or-go-home quarterfinal contest that whittles eight of the world’s best teams down to four. The winners come within touching distance of a medal, the losers fall to the bricks, and the whole thing crackles with an energy that only national pride can generate.

It wasn’t always this way. In 1992, there were only a handful of really good international teams to fill a convincing final eight that could at least compete with the American behemoth. The seven teams that reached the quarterfinals in Barcelona that didn’t have the U.S. on their jerseys had a combined seven active NBA players on their rosters. That was a far cry from Tuesday, when anyone lucky enough to be in the building for all four games saw a whopping 47 NBA players take the court, including six Most Valuable Players with a combined 13 trophies: LeBron James (four), Nikola Jokic (three), Stephen Curry (two), Giannis Antetokounmpo (two), Kevin Durant and Joel Embiid (one each).

Unlike the gymnastics sessions that took place in the same building last week, each of Tuesday’s four quarterfinals required a separate ticket, forcing the poor stewards to drag the crowd to the doors within seconds of the final whistle. That meant some 40,000 fans descended on this quiet suburb in the 12th arrondissement, creating a festival-like atmosphere on the closed-off streets from morning until late at night.

Outside, people hung flags around them and drank down plastic cups of beer, while the bars across the street were full of fans reacting to each basket on television. One of them, Brasserie Les Spectacles, had the sense to decorate its window with American flags and declare itself the “official” USA fan zone. And the shirts. So many shirts: mainstream and obscure, contemporary and old-fashioned, authentic and fake, from Michael Jordan to Michael Olowokandi to at least four variations of Victor Wembanyama (Mets 92, Spurs, France home and away).

Inside the venue, the quality of the games themselves ranged from good to great. After Germany knocked out Greece in the opening game to reach the Olympic semifinals for the first time, Serbia came back from a 24-point deficit to defeat Australia in overtime and complete the largest comeback in Olympic history. By the time France took the court against a podium-focused Canadian team loaded with NBA talent, the 10,100-seat arena was a powder keg waiting for a game. The hosts made sure of that early on, taking a commanding early lead before holding off a late comeback followed by a garbage time Marseillaise and yet another sing-along of Freed from Desire. The Canadians’ 88-year medal drought continued.

Wembanyama is fascinating. The 20-year-old with an 8ft wingspan came into the Olympics with the weight of the country on his shoulders – he was named the NBA’s rookie of the year and finished second in the year’s defender category, behind only his French teammate Rudy Gobert – but the pressure has eased somewhat with the emergence of national sensations such as Leon Marchand, Teddy Riner and even the Brothers Lebrun. It’s likely that Wemby will still be the cornerstone of Les Bleus at the 2036 Doha Olympic Gamesbut a long-awaited Olympic medal is suddenly 40 minutes away.

Of course, there was no doubt about the night’s real headliners. The Americans never quite got out of second gear, jumping out to a two-figure lead against a heavily outmatched Brazil in the first four minutes and never looking back. After the deafening atmosphere of the game before, the one-way traffic elicited more polite applause than muscle flexing during the brief moments when the drama lasted. Despite all the progress their international rivals have made in recent years, the United States is 141-5 in the Olympics, including 34-1 since their infamous flop in Athens in 2004. While their closest rivals may have caught up with the talent in their starting five, it’s a second line of elite substitutes who are expected to carry them to a fifth straight Olympic gold medal.

But the spirit of the evening was summed up perfectly with Brazil trailing by over 30 points with two minutes to go, the once bustling media stands long empty, as their green-clad supporters and the many neutral French on their side burst into a series of deafening football chants, defiant to the last before heading out into the sticky night. Four games played, four teams left and a day well spent.