Joel Embiid Blames LeBron James For His 'Doubts' About Team USA

Joel Embiid finds himself teamed up with LeBron James as Team USA is on their quest to win what would be their fifth straight gold medal at the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics.

While the American national teams have dominated the games in years past, they assembled what many are considering to be the deepest team in Team USA's history to combat what is a very deep talent pool around the world.

Other national teams like France, Canada, and even Australia are all as talented as ever and looking to dethrone Team USA, which many think will be a tough task with legends like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry.

However, one of the younger players who is making his Olympic debut is doubting Team USA's chances because of one of those legends. The player in question is Joel Embiid, who in a recent interview cited a certain aspect regarding James as the reason he "doubts" Team USA will win.

Embiid cited James' age and the fact he is not in his prime as a concern for the Stars and Stripes.

"You look at the talent that the U.S. has, but there’s equal talent on other teams. And the talent that’s on the U.S. team, you also got to understand most of those guys are older," Embiid said in an interview with The New York Times 's David Marchese when asked if he had doubts about the team.

Furthermore, Embiid feels that father time is crawling up on the 20-time NBA All-Star, as he feels James is not the same player he was before. More so is that the Cameroonian-native sees that putting James' name on the roster is only good on paper.

"The LeBron now is not the LeBron that was a couple of years ago. So it’s a big difference. Everybody would also tell you, and you can see for yourself, the athletic LeBron, dominant that he was a couple of years ago, is not the same that he is now. I think people get fooled by the names on paper. But those names have been built throughout their career, and now they’re older. They’re not what they used to be."

It is certainly an odd statement to make ahead of the Olympics from Embiid, but James hasn't been shy about acknowledging his age. The 39-year-old has already confirmed that this will be his fourth and final Olympics.

As for how the team has looked thus far through their three exhibition games, they are 3-0 with an average margin of victory of 15 points. They will take on South Sudan on Saturday and Germany on Tuesday for their final exhibition games. Team USA opens the games against Serbia on July 28, whom they beat by 26 the first time around.