LeBron James Channels His Inner ‘Washington Crossing the Delaware’ Carrying The American Flag On The Seine In The Pouring Rain

The Summer Olympics in Paris are underway in earnest amid Friday's opening ceremony, and basketball LeBron James got to bear the United States flag. It was already going to be an instantly iconic moment on its own. However, no one could've anticipated that The King's great honor would've eerily paralleled one of the foremost artistic images dating back to the American Revolutionary War. Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting Washington Crosses the Delaware paid tribute to a pivotal sequence in the war. Eventual first U.S. president George Washington led the Continental Army across the Delaware River beginning on Christmas Day, 1776, culminating in a victory at the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey. https://twitter.com/artbutsports/status/1816928505869086722 Just to be clear, conflating these two concepts is in no way to suggest that sailing into battle and participating in a Summer Olympics ceremony are remotely comparable in terms of real-life stakes. Nevertheless, the similar framing can't be denied. Art But Make It Sports has a 100% hit rate as far as I've seen when it comes to comparing a sports-related image to artwork from any point in world history. That's the case here once again. But it wasn't just an encyclopedic, brilliant mind at the helm of that particular niche of X/Twitter who noticed the uncanny resemblance. More than a few folks out there made the connection in real time. https://twitter.com/RKalland/status/1816927205047615822 https://twitter.com/KSBWDrea/status/1816927693872726217 https://twitter.com/BronMuse/status/1816930759892173277 https://twitter.com/LakersLead/status/1816924957496246533 USA Basketball is a mortal lock to win the gold medal now, right? LeBron's heroics against South Sudan and Germany helped the Americans avoid two potentially embarrassing defeats in an exhibition setting. For a roster rife with NBA talent, there were more than a few rough edges to smooth out before the games really start to matter. Hopefully those growing pains are behind the latest star-studded Team USA squad. In any event, I have a feeling this will be one of those images that'll continue to make the rounds as the Summer Olympics unfold, and it'll become truly immortalized if the U.S. is indeed atop the podium in men's hoops. The same goes for women's tennis and Coco Gauff to a certain degree. She was a USA flag bearer alongside LeBron and is the No. 2 seed in the singles draw. We'll all be cheering her on in her own quest to make history.