Featured Columnist IVAugust 6, 2024
Michael Reaves/Getty Images
While names such as Simone Biles, Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky come to mind when naming Olympics legends, Kevin Durant is also one of the all-time greats when it comes to the Games.
He officially eliminated any doubt during Tuesday’s 122-87 victory over Brazil in Tuesday’s quarterfinal matchup at the 2024 Paris Olympics by becoming the all-time highest scorer in United States Olympic basketball history.
Bleacher Report @BleacherReport
KD (489) now has the MOST PTS EVER, men’s & women’s, for Team USA 🇺🇸🐐 pic.twitter.com/316XMhzzq3
USA Basketball @usabasketball
The dunk that put KD at the top of the U.S. Olympic scoring list.
🇺🇸 #USABMNT #Paris2024 #Basketball
pic.twitter.com/M50LusI8W6
The future Hall of Famer surpassed Lisa Leslie’s record of 488 career Olympic points and earned congratulations from plenty of notable names, including the WNBA legend herself:
Lisa Leslie @LisaLeslie
Congratulations @KDTrey5 I’m honored to have you break my @TeamUSA Olympic record!!! Our dedication to our country is evident and etched in stone!! Now go get another Gold medal my friend! One Team, One Goal, Gold!
🥇🇺🇸 #GoUSA
Earvin Magic Johnson @MagicJohnson
Congratulations to Kevin Durant on becoming the career leader in points for the U.S. in Olympic competition with 489 points!👏🏾@KDTrey5
Durant needed just six points to pass Leslie’s mark and ended up with 11 off the bench in the team’s latest win.
“Records are meant to be broken, so somebody will come along and do the same to me,” he said, per ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. “My focus is on trying to win this gold.”
Winning gold will be nothing new for Durant.
He helped lead the Americans to Olympic glory in the 2012 London Games, 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and the 2020 Tokyo Games. He averaged a combined 20.6 points per game across those three Olympics.
While he is coming off the bench for this year’s team and worked through a calf injury that sidelined him for the exhibition slate, he has still been one of the go-to options and likely will be again when the Americans take on Serbia in Thursday’s semifinals.
And how could he not be? After all, he’s the best scorer in program history.
