Lakers’ Forwards LeBron James & Carmelo Anthony Are At Fault For Team USA Winning Bronze In 2004 Olympics, Says NBA Champion Richard Jefferson
In 2004, the Team USA Men’s Basketball team was favored to win the Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown led the team. Having won gold in the last three consecutive Olympics, the Americans were favored for gold again in 2004. Instead, the team won the bronze medal after losing three games to their opponents, the most games ever lost by a US men’s Olympic basketball team.
That team’s roster featured the players such as Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Richard Jefferson, to name a few.
Speaking of Richard Jefferson, he was a guest in the NBA Top Shot Twitter Spaces and was asked if he won a gold medal in Athens would he consider himself more than above average. He also blamed the team for not winning the gold medal on LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony.
“It 100 percent it was all of those guys’ fault. It was everybody’s fault but my fault. Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, those guys [have] three MVPs between them,” Jefferson said jokingly.
“Honestly, I still don’t talk to Tim Duncan to this day because of his performance [I’m] going to be really honest.”
Richard Jefferson would later become a teammate of Duncan’s during the 2009 -10 season and spent three seasons in a Spurs uniform. He would become a teammate of LeBron James, and they won a championship together during the 2016-2017 season after trailing 3-1 to the 73-9 Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.
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