Team USA big 3 LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant lock horns with AJ Dybantsa for major honor
Team USA’s biggest superstars, LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant will go toe-to-toe against rising star and U17 player AJ Dybantsa for this year’s USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year, as was announced on Saturday. The honor is done annually to recognize the top male athletes across the program’s squads from the senior and youth levels.
Aside from the four stars, U18 player Mikel Brown Jr. completes the final cast for the major honor, which will be decided via votes from players, coaches, media, administrators and fans. The voting will go from December 21 up until January 5.
According to the USA basketball website, fans can only vote once per day.
Each player gave Team USA glory in international basketball competitions this year. James, Curry and Durant teamed up in the 2024 Paris Olympics to lead the Americans to their fifth straight Olympic gold medal in a sweep of the competition, which featured the likes of Serbia’s Nikola Jokic, Canada’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexnader, France’s Victor Wembanyama and Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.
LeBron James, the oldest player in the Olympic team, picked up his third Olympic gold medal in the tournament, while Curry had his first taste of gold in the Paris Games.
Meanwhile, Durant has been a Team USA mainstay in the past decade, winning his fourth straight Olympic gold medal in Paris, while also becoming the all-time leading scorer for the national team with 518 points in the Olympics.
On the other hand, Dybantsa and Brown Jr. also made their mark in the youth tournaments with Team USA. Dybantsa, the top prospect of the Class of 2025, led Team USA in a gold-medal run at the FIBA U17 World Cup, dominating the competition with a point differential of 63 points.
Brown Jr. also anchored Team USA in the FIBA U18 Men’s AmeriCup en route to the gold medal in the tournament.
LeBron James says Paris was his final Olympics
Even before the Paris Games started, LeBron James, perhaps the biggest basketball star in the world, had already bid its farewell to the Olympics.
James confirmed he will not be in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, even as he still plays for the Lakers and is just residing in the Olympic host city.
“No, I won’t be there,” LeBron said on NBC’s Today Show in July. “I’m getting the hell out of that city when the Olympics come to Los Angeles. All right, I’ll live there all year. I will not be in Los Angeles in ’28. I’m getting out of there.”
LeBron James will be 43 during the 2028 Olympics and could be retired from the sport when the next event rolls around in L.A. James is already the oldest active player in the NBA today, and has tied the record for most seasons played by a player in the league with 22.